‘Given stale food, locked up, threatened with murder’: Navi Mumbai truck cleaner on ‘abduction’ horror at Khedkar residence

In his statement, Kumar said that after Dilip and his driver-cum-bodyguard Praful Salunkhe had an argument with the truck driver over the incident in Navi Mumbai, they abducted Kumar, claiming that they were taking him to the police station. He was, however, taken to their Pune residence on Saturday evening.

Once he was inside the vehicle, Kumar alleged, they snatched his mobile phone and threatened him to keep still. On reaching home, they locked him in a room which appeared to be meant for a watchman or cook. He was given stale food and they called up the truck owner demanding money for the damage to their car, he alleged. “They threatened to kill him if the money was not paid,” an officer said.

Kumar was rescued early on Sunday by a Navi Mumbai police team that reached the residence following a complaint filed by the truck owner. The police allegedly found that in order to destroy evidence of the abduction, Manorama Khedkar, Dilip’s wife, allegedly gave the room’s keys to someone and the CCTV’s digital video recorder was removed.

The police have included the charges of extortion and destruction of evidence against the accused in addition to the initial charge of kidnapping. While the bodyguard Salunkhe has been arrested, investigators are on the lookout for the Khedkar couple who are currently on the run.

Last year, the Centre dismissed Dilip’s daughter Puja Khedkar from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) after she was found guilty of cheating and wrongly availing of benefits under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category and disability quota.

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