Maha: Two held for extorting money from builder

Two persons have been arrested for allegedly extorting Rs 30,000 from a builder in Ulhasnagar town of Maharashtra's Thane district, police said on Thursday.

One of the accused, Sheru Gangwani (40), posed as an RTI activist last year and complained to the Ulhasnagar civic body about certain alleged irregularities in the builder's construction work, Thane Anti-Extortion Cell's senior police inspector Rajkumar V Kothmire said.

Gangwani later allegedly demanded Rs 50,000 from the builder to withdraw the complaint and settled the deal at Rs 30,000, he said.

He also allegedly demanded Rs 20,000 as 'hafta' (extortion money collected on a weekly or monthly basis) from the builder till his construction work was in progress and threatened the latter would be killed if he failed to pay, the official said.

The builder lodged a complaint with the police's Anti-Extortion Cell, which laid a trap and nabbed Gangwani and the latter's associate Mohan Askarani (52) while they were accepting the money from the victim at a hotel inUlhasnagar on Wednesday evening, the official said.

The accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections for extortion, he said.

Search was on for five others who were also involved in the crime, he added.