Maharashtra: Mumbai police file fourth extortion cases against Param Bir Singh

Mumbai, Aug 21: A new extortion case has been filed against former police commissioner Param Bir Singh by the Mumbai police based on a complaint lodged by a builder-cum-hotelier.

This is the fourth such case against Singh, including second in Mumbai. Two other cases were filed in Thane city. All these FIRs were registered within a span of one month.

The latest FIR was filed on Friday night at Goregaon police station based on the complaint lodged by 48-year-old Bimal Agrawal, the official said.

In this case, dismissed police officer Sachin Waze and four others - Sumit Singh alias Chintu, Alpesh Patel, Vinay Singh alias Babloo and Riyaz Bhati - have also been named as accused, he said.

As per the complaint by Agrawal, the accused extorted collectively Rs 9 lakh from him in several tranches for not conducting raids on two bars and restaurants, which he ran in partnership, and also forced him to buy two smartphones worth around Rs 2.92 lakh for them. The incident occurred between January 2020 and March 2021, it said.

Based on the complaint, the case was filed under IPC sections 384 and 385 (both pertaining to extortion) 34 (common intention) against the six accused and probe in the case is on, he said.

Singh is currently posted as DG Home Guards and he has not been attending office since May as he is on sick leave.

On July 22, Marine Drive police station in Mumbai had registered an FIR against Singh, five other police personnel, and two more persons for allegedly demanding Rs 15 crore from a builder. The next day, one more case of extortion was registered against him, some other police officers at Kopri police station in Thane. On July 30, another extortion case was filed against the senior IPS officer at Thane Nagar police station on the basis of a complaint lodged by businessman Ketan Tanna.

Singh was shunted out as Mumbai police commissioner in March this year after the arrest of dismissed police officer Sachin Waze in the case of an explosives-laden vehicle found near the residence of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai. Singh later accused the then state home minister Anil Deshmukh of corruption, leading to the latter''s resignation in April.

The complainant in the latest extortion case, Agrawal, had bagged a contract to provide bomb disposal suit, a total containment vehicle (TCV) and a robot for the Maharashtra police department in 2009 post 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, police said.

In March 2012, an offence was registered against him at the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police and he was also arrested by the CBI and the ED in 2017, they said.

Goregaon police recorded Agrawal's statement in connection with his complaint, in which he said that in February 2020, Sachin Waze had met him and told him that Param Bir Singh would soon become Mumbai CP.

Agawal said Waze asked him to restart his hotel business, and assured to set up things as the job of ''collection'' from hotels would be given to him. Agrawal then started a hotel in partnership, but it was shut due to COVID-19 since March 2020.

As Param Bir Singh became Mumbai CP soon later and Waze was made in-charge of Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU), Agrawal decided to help him in collections from hotels fearing his business will be in trouble.

Waze called Agrawal at Kandivali office of crime branch on August 31, 2020, where the officer said that he had been told by ''Number-1'' that he had suffered losses of Rs 6 crore per month due to COVID-19 and in order to recover the losses, he has been given the target of collecting Rs 2 crore daily.

In his statement, Agrawal claimed that Waze said Param Bir Singh had told him to have a "setting" with all the bookies, who would be allowed to start their business from Mumbai.

Waze told Agrawal that he was facing tremendous pressure from ''Number-1'' and he should help him by providing all the information related to collection from hotel, bars and bookies, otherwise he will not allow him to operate his business as well. Waze was more desperate for collections, although the hotel industry was not open yet due to COVID-19, the statement added.

During the meeting, Agrawal told Waze to seek help of two persons for collection from hotels and bars, and from bookies. Accordingly, Waze called the concerned person and told him that henceforth he had to give all the collections from bookies to Param Bir Singh only, Agrawal claimed in the statement.

with PTI inputs