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Journalism of Courage
The Pune city police have invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in yet another case against the Tipu Pathan gang.
The First Information Report (FIR) in the case was lodged at the Kalepadal police station on October 12, following a complaint by a 31-year-old woman from Mumbai, who owns a 1,290 sq ft piece of land at Sayyad Nagar in Pune’s Hadapsar area.
According to the police, in the FIR, the woman said that gangster Rizwan alias Tipu Pathan, 34, a resident of Mohammadwadi, and his gang members allegedly took illegal possession of her land, constructed a tin shed on it, and rented the property out. When the woman asked them to vacate her land, they allegedly demanded Rs 25 lakh and threatened to kill her, the FIR stated.
The police booked Pathan and 12 gang members under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) on several charges, including extortion, criminal intimidation, criminal trespass, wrongful restraint, unlawful assembly, rioting, etc, among others, a press release issued on Friday by Senior Police Inspector Mansingh Patil of Kalepadal police station stated.
Pathan and several members of his gang are currently in jail. Pathan has been booked in about 30 serious offences in the past, which include murder, attempt to murder, and extortion.
The police had intensified action against Pathan after a video of him purportedly hurling money during a qawwali programme in the city had gone viral in April this year. In the same month, the police arrested Pathan and others, including his brother Ejaz Pathan, in a land grab and extortion case filed by another woman at the Kalepadal police station.
Following their arrest, the police even paraded Pathan and his aides in the Hadapsar area on the evening of April 12. The police then invoked the MCOCA against the gang in this case.
In June, a gang member, Shahrukh alias Atti Rahim, wanted in this case, was gunned down by the police during an encounter in Solapur.
In September, in a joint action, the Pune City Police and the Pune Municipal Corporation razed an alleged illegal construction carried out by Pathan at the Khwaja Manzil building at Sayyad Nagar using a bulldozer.
