Major extortion racket cracked

The gang, police said, had extracted Rs two lakh from a Mumbai jeweller, Arvind Pukhraj Jain, during his business trip to the city on April 14 after threatening him of dire consequences if he reported the incident to the police.

Interestingly, the gang used to study the movements of such businessmen right after they alighted at Pune railway station and returned back with their business collection. Jain, a regular visitor to various jewellers in Pune besides Dehu Road and Kamshet, was one among their victims.

Investigations revealed that on April 14 one of the gang members, Rahul Agarkar, posed as an autorickshaw driver and trapped Jain in front of Parmar Jewellers near Apollo Theatre. Instead of taking Jain to railway station to catch Indriyani Express on his way back to Mumbai, Agarkar took him through a tortuous route that snaked Somwar Peth and finally led to a small lane next to Sahu tank connecting KEM hospital to Sant Gadge Maharaj Ashram.

Stopping in front of a public toilet on false pretext, Agrakar whipped out a knife as Adhav and Mane joined him. They extorted his days collection of Rs two lakh at knife point.

The trio has confessed to the crime and a case has been registered with the Samarth police station.

The police has also recovered a knife, an iron rod, the rickshaw that Agarkar used in their modus operandi. The gang is suspected to have been involved in various such cases.