A Sub-Inspector (SI) and two constables attached to the Sewree police station were on Tuesday arrested on the charges of impersonating as crime branch officers, cheating and extortion.
SI Prasant Mane, two constables — Devendra Chauhan, 39, and Rajaram Pandurang Lad, 40, and two others had allegedly barged into the house of a Malad-based businessman on August 23 by posing as officers from the crime branch and had made away with gold worth Rs18 lakh and Rs5 lakh in cash.
Mane was remanded in judicial custody till October 28 by a holiday court in Bandra.
The other two were arrested on Tuesday evening and will be produced in court on Wednesday.
According to the police, “Mane, along with his two constables, and three others posed as crime branch officials and raided the house of Mohammed Hashim Sheikh, 48, in Malad (East), who runs a hotel in Vakola, Santacruz (East). They took gold ornaments worth over Rs18 lakh and Rs5 lakh in cash, alleging it to be money that is unaccounted for,” said senior Inspector Vinayak Kakade of the Dindoshi police station.
Before leaving the house, they cut his telephone lines and said they would call him up later to appear at a police station. “They mentioned neither theirs nor the police station's name,” said Kakde.
Sheikh claimed that the gold and cash were from a sale of his ancestral property in Bihar.
He approached the police when he started receiving abusive SMSes from one Gaibul Hassan Khan and after failing to get a call from the cops.
Based on his complaint, Khan, 36, Abdul Sheikh, 34, and the complainant's nephew Salman Khan, were arrested.
Salman Khan admitted during the interrogation that he knew of the cash and the valuables at his uncle's house.
He claimed that Mohammed Sheikh had refused to give money to his father when asked for.
“Khan then came up with the idea of cheating his uncle and told one of his friends, who is believed to be a police informer, Imran, that his uncle has kept hawala money at his house,” said a police officer.
Imran approached Mane over it and told him that Sheikh also ran an illegal business of country-made revolvers, said Inspector S N Chaudhary.
It was Khan who had let out the involvement of Mane and the two constables. Imran is still at large.
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