Woman alleges threat from top Sena leader

The petition was heard by a division bench of Justice A P Shah and Justice J A Patil. Considering the seriousness of the matter, the justices ordered the Commissioner of Police to file an affidavit in reply to the petition and directed the serving of a notice to Loke making it returnable on December 2.

The court also directed the registrar to issue notices to Maxtouch, BPL Mobile Services and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd to disclose before the court, the names of subscribers of mobile no 98210-51030 and telephone number 4225267 from where the threats were issued to the petitioner.

Trindade said in the petition that on October 21 she received two calls on her mobile telephone and yet another on her residential telephone from Loke who threatened her and other family members with dire consequences unless she met Thackeray at Sena Bhavan to settle the dispute of Marina Resorts in Goa with one Regina D’souza. Trindade alleged that her husband met the police commissioner on the same day to appraise him about the threats but he expressed his inability to help. Loke is a recent entrant to the Shiv Sena from the Congress and was declared a deputy leader’ by Sena supremo Bal Thackeray in October. He was also one of the persons named as allegedly being involved in the Ramesh Kini case.

However, speaking to Express Newsline, Loke denied that he had ever threatened the Trinidade couple. He said he had taken up the case of one Mrs D’Souza on recommendation from Thane Sena leader Anand Dighe who had approached him at the Sena Bhavan in his capacity as a “social worker”.

According to Loke, D’Souza was related to the Trinidade couple and had a housekeeping contract with them for a Hotel Paradise that they purportedly run in Goa. They owed her more than Rs four lakhs and were defaulting on the payment, she told Loke. “It is Mrs D’Souza who herself connected me to the Trinidade couple on whom I have not set eyes so far and I requested them to settle the matter. If I had wished to threaten them why would I have used my mobile phone? I would have called anonymously from a public phone,” he said. Loke said had neither received any notice from the court. “All I have got is a lawyer’s petition sent to me by their lawyer,” he said and complained that it was an attempt to malign him. "It is either being done by some political rivals or those jealous of my success," he added.