PUNE: Interrogation of a six-member gang, including a woman, charged with abducting, and extorting a Panvel-based builder revealed that members of the group were repeat offenders.
The Kondhwa police said the gang members — with three more accomplices — had entrapped a 20-year-old student from Hadapsar last year and extorted his family of Rs20 lakh. This had happened at Inamdar Vasti, Koregaon Mul and Uruli Kanchan between October 15 and 20 last year, police said.
A fresh case was registered in this regard against nine people with the Loni Kalbhor police on Thursday.
The gang had deployed the same modus operandi — the woman would first get in touch with the target on social media and become friendly with him. Then, she would invite him to meet her at a specific spot after which, the others would waylay and attack the victim, and threaten to implicate him in a false rape case if he did not pay them.
“The student in his FIR said he had become friendly with the woman and had a physical relationship with her. The last time he met her, in Uruli Kanchan, her accomplices — including her brother — set upon the youth and robbed him of Rs3,000,” sub-inspector Nitin Shinde from the Loni Kalbhor police said on Friday.
“The suspects then forcibly drove the student around in a car, halted it outside the Yavat police station in rural Pune and threatened to register a rape case against him and demanded Rs 50 lakh to settle the matter. The student called up and sought help from his parents,” Shinde said.
The student told police that his parents negotiated with the suspects and agreed to pay Rs 20 lakh.
“They borrowed money from friends and paid the suspects. The youth did not register an FIR back then out of fear of defamation,” Shinde further said.
