Two days after an assistant inspector of Khar police jumped out of his Bandra home after Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) tried to nab him red-handed while accepting a bribe from a real estate agent, the officer is still absconding.
API Subhash Samant, along with senior inspector Mahendra Narlekar, had allegedly connived with a builder Vicky Arora and his accomplices to extort money from the agent and grab his office space in Khar (West). Five accused, including the builder and the police officers, are missing.
According to ACB officers, phones of the all the accused have been switched off ever since Samant fled. Narlekar did not show up for his night duty on Monday at Khar police station. "ACB has conducted search operations in the homes of all the accused and recovered Rs40,000 and receipts of microwave, oven, and other electronic equipment from Samant's Bandra house. We conducted a search at Samant's Kolhapur house, Arora's house as well as Narlekar's house in Dadar, but did not find much there," said Vishwas Nangre Patil, additional commissioner of police, ACB.
He added that ACB has formed two teams to nab the five and sought the help of the local police. "We have written to the commissioner and director general of police about the case. The case is very strong and we have ample evidence to prove it in court of law," said Patil.
ACB has collected recordings of conversation between the police officers and the complainant and conference calls among the officers, builder and the complainant. The alleged rape application used to threaten the complainant, which was never in the record of the Khar police, was also recovered from Samant's car.
Samant and Narlekar had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs50 lakh and Rs2 lakh, respectively, from the agent to settle an alleged rape case in which he was shown as the accused.
Arora had connived with officers attached with the Khar police station to extort money and grab the agent's office space at Arora Towers, 10th Road. When the agent refused to vacate his office, Arora and his accomplices befriended him and took him to a farmhouse in Dahanu, where Arora filmed the agent get intimate with one of the women he had brought.
Armed with the clip, Arora colluded with Samant and Narlekar to trap the agent. The officers summoned the agent claiming that the woman he had met in Dahanu had filed a rape case against him. They then demanded Rs50 lakh and his office to settle the case, said the complainant. Following this, the agent approached ACB who laid a trap.
Samant called the agent to his residence on Carter Road with original documents of the office and Rs10 lakh as first instalment. ACB on Monday evening sent the complainant with Rs20,000 and blank notes in between.
After the transaction was done, an ACB official tried to enter Samant's house. However, Samant managed to lock the door from inside. By the time ACB sleuths broke open the door, Samant had jumped through the AC window and escaped.
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