The Mumbai police SIT investigating an extortion case registered against IPS officer Param Bir Singh and others is probing threat phone calls made to a city builder allegedly by gangster Chhota Shakeel, a close aide of India's most wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, an official said on Tuesday. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed to investigate the extortion FIR registered against Singh and seven others at the Marine Drive Police Station in south Mumbai and a connected case probed by Unit-9 of the city crime branch.
During the SIT investigation, it came to light that some threat calls were made to builder Sanjay Punamia allegedly by Shakeel in November 2016 and then in November 2020 at the behest of his former partner and realty developer Shyamsundar Agarwal, the official said. According to police sources, these phone calls were made from numbers which were traced to Karachi in Pakistan.
Agarwal was then booked by the Mumbai police under MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) for his alleged connection with the gangster, they said. The SIT suspects the case against Agarwal is fake and is probing why the offence against him was registered late if threat calls were made in 2016 too, the sources said.
The SIT also suspects the FIR was registered against Agarwal to extort money, they said. Agarwal is the complainant in the extortion case registered against Singh, a former Mumbai police commissioner, and others at the Marine Drive police station.
He had alleged that Singh and other police officers conspired with his former partner Punamia and his associate Sunil Jain, and demanded Rs 15 crore as extortion money from him, police have said. Punamia and Jain have been arrested in the case.
Another FIR alleging extortion has been registered against Singh and others at Kopri in Thane city on the complaint of Agarwal's nephew, police said. Singh had also served as the Thane police commissioner.
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