Pune: Salman Qureshi, the kingpin of a notorious gang in Yerawada, and his five accomplices have been arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), 1999 for assaulting and robbing a person at a public place.
This is the 78th such action taken by Commissioner of Police (CP) Retesh Kumarr against criminal gangs in the city since he took charge as the city police chief.
According to the details provided by the police, the complainant had arrived in Pune from Mahad to buy a vehicle. He had halted, along with his friends, at the bridge near Chimaghat in Yerawada. Qureshi and his aides arrived there and picked a quarrel with the complainant and abused him and his friends. Then Qureshi and his gang members beat up and assaulted them with a knife and snatched Rs 90,000 from the complainant’s pocket. The incident took place on September 13, 2023. A case was registered under sections 394, 395, 397, 120 (B), 34 of the IPC at the Yerwada Police Station.
The arrested gangsters have been identified as Salman Farooq Qureshi (23), Shivkumar alias Shiva Sanjay Shelar (21), Durgesh Sanjay Satkar (21), Akash alias Dashrath Hanumant Bhandari (23), Anuj Somnath Jogdand (20), all residents of Yerawada, and Yogesh alias Narendra Dilip Navaghane (30), a resident of Katraj.
Qureshi has been accused of forming a criminal gang and committing serious crimes to establish its hold. Among the crimes that the gang has committed included, causing an injury, possessing an arm, terrorising people, robbery and causing a loss to the government by selling illicit liquor. Preventive action was taken against the gang but it continued to commit serious crimes.
Investigation Officer (IO) API Mahesh Lamkhede prepared a proposal under sections 3 (1)(ii), 3(2) and 3(4) of the MCOCA under the guidance of Senior PI Balkrishna Kadam and sent it through DCP Shashikant Borate (Zone 4) to Addl CP (Zone 4) Ranjan Kumar Sharma, who scrutinised and okayed it.
The action was taken under the guidance of CP Retesh Kumarr, Joint CP Sandeep Karnik, Addl CP Ranjan Kumar Sharma, DCP Shashikant Borate and ACP Sanjay Patil. A team comprising PI Balkrishna Kadam, PI Kanchan Jadhav, Jaydeep Gaikwad, API Mahesh Lamkhede, police personnel Sachin Mali, Sachin Shinde, Devidas Vandhare and Prakash Chowdhari took the action.
