Pune: In the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Office, a disturbing incident of extorting money by filing dubious complaints against the organisation that took the contract for toilet and hospital cleaning to withdraw the application has resurfaced. In this regard, one so-called social activist and other business competitors have been charged by Swargate police for illegal extortion and abusing the plaintiff by slurring casteist remarks against him.
In this regard, the 46-year-old director of an institution from Hadapsar has filed a complaint (G. Reg. No. 330/23) at Swargate Police Station. Accordingly, the police have arrested R. R. Bhujbal, and a case has also been registered against Prahlad alias Kenhaiyalal Gawli, Rambhau alias Shriram Khandekar, Vaibhav Dombale, and Tukaram Arjun Landge. This entire incident took place between 2022 and 2023 in the office of the District Special Accounts Examiner Co-operative Society at the Municipal Corporation Main Building, situated at Shankar Math in Hadapsar, Gultekdi.
According to the information provided by the police, the plaintiffs are taking contracts for cleaning toilets, hospitals, etc. in Pune Municipality. After securing one of such contracts, the business competitors of the plaintiff, Gawli, Khandekar, and Dombale, in connivance with Landge and Bhujbal, craftily expropriated contracts from him lodging futile and baseless complaints.
In a cunning manoeuvre, they lodged a baseless complaint against the plaintiff’s Lokrajya Swayamrojgar Seva Cooperative Society, coupled with a brazen demand of five lakh rupees to retract the said complaint. The complainant states that the accused further pressurised him for payment of the given sum and also made some casteist remarks at him.
Hence, opting for legal intervention, the aggrieved party filed a complaint against the accused at the Swargate police station, citing charges of atrocity and unlawful extortion. The assistant commissioner of police, Shirgaonkar, is investigating further into the case.
