SpeakAsia panellists accuse EOW of harassment, move court

A group of over 15 lakh panellists of Singapore-headquartered SpeakAsia Online company has moved the Bombay High Court, claiming that officials of the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the city police are harassing them with repeated attempts to extort money.

The panellists have in their writ filed in court claimed being threatened of being booked in a criminal case if they didn’t cough up the money demanded by the police. While over 150 panellists have so far been called in for questioning by the city police, a senior EOW official denied the charge saying it was aimed at derailing the ongoing probe, sources said.

Represented by Melwyn Crasto and Ashok Bahirwani, president and secretary respectively of the All-India SpeakAsia Panellists Association (AISPA), the association with a 15-lakh members, including over 3.5 lakh in Mumbai alone, has charged the police of using the company’s seized records to target members of the general public, who constitute the panellists.

One of the paragraphs in the criminal writ plea points to the unabashed means of police officers, who openly demand a certain amount from the panellists or ask them to face arrest. “It is public knowledge that Rs5,000 is the going rate for avoiding police harassment. If these corrupt officers are able in collect the sum from every panellist, they would end up with a total of Rs1500 crore,” it adds. Demanding an inquiry by the CBI into the case, the petitioners’ counsel Ahmed Abdi claimed that so far no probe by any investigating agencies in the country has found anything wrong with the company.