Pune: Police Inspector (Crime) Murlidhar Khokale attached with the Bibwewadi police station has been suspended by Police Commissioner Dr K Venkatesham on Thursday. Inspector Khokale was found guilty of extorting money from a travel company owner for releasing his vehicle seized during the lockdown.
A bus belonging to Rajlaxmi Travels owned by one Manohar Sinha was seized on July 14 by the Bibwewadi police at a checkpoint. Police had detained the bus driver Arvind Goswami for violating the norms of the strict lockdown which was imposed in the city from July 13 to 23 to contain the spread of coronavirus.
However, instead of asking Goswami to pay the fine at the police station, the police personnel booked the travel company owner Sinha under section 188 (disobedience of order duly promulgated by a public servant) of Indian Penal Code. The bus was also seized after the FIR was registered. An amount of Rs 50,000 was demanded, through a third party person, from Sinha to release the bus.
Sinha had then asked his friend Narsimha Rajpurohit to help him out in the case. Rajpurohit knew one Sukhdev Bhimdan Charan (37) of Kakade Vasti in Kondhwa who was willing to negotiate with the police. Charan introduced Rajpurohit to another person Santosh Gada who had cordial relations with PI (Crime) Murlidhar Khokale. Gada then arranged a meeting of Rajpurohit with Khokale and requested the officer to help the travel firm.
Khokale conveyed the message through Charan to Rajpurohit that Sinha would have to pay Rs 50 thousand as a bribe. The amount was sent through driver Goswami to Charan, but he returned the amount to Rajpurohit after he got a tipoff that a complaint is being filed in this case. Later, Rajpurohit filed an extortion complaint on July 17 against Charan. He was arrested on July 21. Police also checked the CCTV footage at the locations and established the involvement of Khokale in the offence.
