Five held in Khar for extorting a builder

The Khar police have arrested five people who claimed to be members of Ravi Pujari gang who had allegedly kidnapped a manager of a developer and demanded a ransom of Rs75 lakh from the builder for his safe return. In an another occasion, last year, the five arrested accused had managed to extract money from the builder by threatening him.

According to the police, the accused have been identified as Ganesh Balkrishna Naik (56), Shriniwas Shiraspaiya Swami (32), Shailesh Gupta(24), Siddhesh Sudhakar More (27), and Nitesh Balubhai Komu (25). Naik was former employee of the developer and had earlier worked in his Versova site as security manager.

In the initial investigation, it was revealed that the accused had threatened the developer twice in one year. "The accused had earlier called the builder posing as Pujari's men and had extorted him for Rs15 lakh rupees in 2014. Later in May this year, they kidnapped a manager of the builder from Santa Cruz and had demanded Rs25 lakh," said an officer.

In the recent attempt, the accused kidnapped the manager from builder's site at Kalamboli area in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday evening. The accused called from the manager's mobile and demanded Rs75 lakh from the builder. The builder approached the Khar police and narrated the incident. The police accordingly laid the trap and arrested all the accused.