Mumbai police on Tuesday named DCP Saurabh Tripathi as a wanted accused in the angadia extortion case, in which three policemen have already been arrested. The police named him as an accused based on the questioning of inspector Om Vangate. The latter was produced before the court on Tuesday and his police custody was extended till March 19.
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Mumbai police had last month registered an FIR against three policemen after couriers, also known as angadias, complained that the local police had been demanding money from them.
While the complaint letter by the angadias had mentioned that DCP Saurabh Tripathi, too, had sought money from them, the police had initially registered an FIR only against three policemen from the LT Marg police station.
A senior officer said, “After questioning Vangate, we found DCP Tripathi had given verbal orders to collect money from angadias. Therefore, we have named him as the wanted accused in our remand application.”
The complainants alleged that the accused police personnel had in December threatened them of an Income Tax raid if they failed to give them money. An inquiry conducted by Additional Commissioner (south region) Dilip Sawant also found CCTV footage of angadias entering a police chowki along with the accused.
The police, though, are yet to recover the amount allegedly extorted by the accused policemen from the angadias.
