Two policemen held for taking bribe
The Pune unit of the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday arrested two cops for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from the complainant.
ACB officials held senior police inspector Rangnath Gaikar and assistant sub-inspector Raghunath Salunkhe of Kondhwa police station from a restaurant in Kondhwa on a tip-off from former corporator Ajay Bhosale. ACB superintendent Vishwas Pandhre said, “Bhosale, the complainant, is an accused in a land grabbing case.”
Gaikar asked Bhosale to come to the police station for an inquiry in the complaint against him. Gaikar allegedly told Bhosale that he was willing to let go of the charges against him if he paid Rs 25 lakh. And even though Bhosale insisted that he would not be able to pay the amount, Gaikar kept harassing him for the money, Pandhare said.
After a lot of negotiation, the amount was reduced to Rs 12.5 lakh, police said. “Of the total bribe amount, Rs 10 lakh were to be paid to Gaikar and the remaining to Salunkhe. Gaikar even said if he didn’t pay the amount he would implicate Bhosale in a false case. Bhosale was asked to pay Rs 5 lakh on Tuesday,” said Pandhare.
The entire incident took a new twist when Salunkhe who had come to collect the money demanded Rs 4 lakh for himself against the agreed Rs 2.5 lakh. The bribe amount of Rs 5 lakh was also recovered from them, police said. This is the second such case in this year when a bribe of Rs 5 lakh was recovered.
In another case in the Satara district, police inspector Shahaji Narsude and police naik K Gaikwad were arrested for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 75,000 and further on demanding an additional bribe of Rs 1 lakh from Kumar Shinde for dropping charges against his family in a dacoity case.
* 33 bribery cases have been solved from Jan till now.
* Rs 16.31 lakh have been returned to 122 applicants who had paid the alleged bribes.
* Six class I officers held, of which 2 were police personnel, 2 executive engineers and two other officers