Param Bir Singh case: Two police officers remanded to CID custody

Mumbai: Two police officers were remanded in the custody of the Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID) custody for seven days by Mumbai court on Tuesday. They were remanded in connection with an extortion case registered at Marine Drive police station here against them and former city police commissioner Param Bir Singh.

The two cops – inspectors Nandkumar Gopale and Asha Korke – who were previously posted in the Mumbai crime branch, were arrested by the CID on Monday.

Gopale was currently posted at the Khandala police training centre, and Korke in the Naigaon local arms unit. The duo was arrested following a complaint filed by real estate developer Shyamsunder Agrawal at the Marine Drive police station on July 22 this year on the charge of extortion.

On Tuesday, the two accused were produced before additional chief metropolitan magistrate R M Nerlikar. The court remanded them in the CID’s custody for further probe into the case. The FIR names Param Bir Singh and seven others, including five police officers.

Besides Korke and Gopale, the other police officers named in the FIR are DCP (crime branch) Akbar Pathan, Assistant Commissioner of Police Shrikant Shinde and ACP Sanjay Patil.

During the investigation into the case, police had arrested Agarwal’s former business partner Sanjay Punamia and his associate Sunil Jain.

The CID was also entrusted with the investigation of a case registered against Shyamsunder Agrawal under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) at Juhu police station for his alleged links with underworld gangster Chhota Shakeel.

Agrawal had alleged that based on this “false” case, Param Bir Singh and other police officers extorted money from him at the behest of his former business partner Sanjay Punamiya, as per the FIR.

According to sources in the CID, both Gopale and Korke were asked about these allegations and they presented their defence saying that the allegations are false and they have been just doing their duty as police officers. However, CID in their thorough probe have found some prima facie evidence and arrested the duo. In July this year,  the Marine Drive police booked former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh and other serving officers including Korke and Gopale on charges of extortion, cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and disobeying the law along with other stringent Sections of the Indian Penal Code. Two DCPs and ACPs were also named in the FIR.