The Ghatkopar unit of the crime branch on Tuesday arrested two journalists working for a weekly regional newspaper on charges of extortion. The police have recovered a bogus press card from them and are investigating whether the two have committed similar offences in the past.
Praful Kamble, 33, the paper's editor, and reporter Dinesh Bhanushali, 43, are both residents of Mulund. According to the joint commissioner of police (crime), Sadanand Date, the complainant's son runs a ration shop in Mulund. "Since the ration shop next to the shop of the complainant's son had been shut down due to some issue, the registered customers of that shop were being directed to the shop of the complainant's son," said Date.
"The accused told the victim that they had procured information under the Right To Information Act that the victim had opened ration distribution shops through illegal means. They also threatened the victim not to sell to registered customers of the closed shop and demanded Rs 3 lakh for not registering a complaint," said senior police inspector Vyankat Patil.
The accused also threatened the victim and his family that they would be killed if they didn't cough up the money. "Fearing for their lives, the victim had paid the accused Rs 25,000 on December 31. Since then, he was getting repeated threats to pay the remaining amount," said Patil.
Fed up, the victim approached the crime branch office on January 6. As per the complainant, the accused had threatened him to pay the remaining amount that day itself. The police then registered a case at Navghar police station and initiated a probe, said additional commissioner of police, crime, KMM Prasanna.
The police then laid a trap at Jhulelal Marg in Mulund (W) and caught the accused red-handed. "The accused are the editor and a reporter of 'Yuva Prabhav'. Our investigation revealed that there was no illegality on the victim's part. Kamble had similar offences registered against him last year in both Navghar and Mulund police stations," said Patil.
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