After mid-day reported two separate cases of crooked cops extorting money from a posh Juhu hotel and a humble cigarette vendor in Andheri the police top brass initiated inquiries against the culprits
Corruption in the police force will not be tolerated. This was the tough message sent to errant cops by Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria (in pic) who suspended two sub-inspectors for extorting money from a five-star hotel in Juhu, just a couple of days after mid-day reported the incident last week.
Rakesh Maria
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In a separate case, a constable was also suspended for impersonating a senior police officer and blackmailing a cigarette vendor. This paper had highlighted both cases in the report ‘Cops try to extort money from 5-star hotel, cigarette seller’, dated February 16.
mid-day’s report on February 16
In the first case, sub-inspectors Chandrakant Methe (Juhu police station) and Vilas Hazare (Vile Parle police station) threatened to launch an investigation against the Juhu hotel unless the management paid them R10 lakh. In the end, they were captured on the CCTV camera accepting Rs 2.2 lakh.
In the second case, constable Anusaya from Juhu police station claimed to be a senior cop from a fictitious Bandra branch of the Social Service unit and blackmailed a cigarette vendor who allegedly sold gutkha on the side in Andheri (West).
After the mid-day article, senior IPS officers and commissioner Maria were infuriated by the incidents. Senior Police Inspector Abhay Shashtri of Juhu police station sent a harsh report against the policemen to his seniors as well.
Following this, Maria suspended both Methe and Hazare from duty last week, while DCP Vinayak Deshmukh suspended constable Anusaya as well. Now all three policemen are off duty, and departmental inquiries have been initiated against them, which could even result in their removal from the police services.
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