The
Hindu: Mumbai: Sunday, 24 January 2016.
An RTI
activist was arrested in suburban Kandivali for allegedly extorting money from
a person on the pretext of exposing him, police said on Saturday.
Acting on a
complaint filed by a contractor, the accused, Afzal Lakhani, was arrested on
Friday from near the Kandivali railway station.
The accused
had allegedly asked the contractor to pay Rs 15,000 and threatened him with
dire consequences if he failed to do so, a police official said.
Lakhani told
the complainant he knew that the latter had paid money to the civic body to get
a contract. He then allegedly asked the contractor to give him Rs 15,000 or
else he would ensure that his work was stopped, the police said.
Subsequently,
the contractor lodged a complaint against the RTI activist.
“We laid a trap yesterday and arrested the
accused when he was accepting the money,” the police official said.
Lakhani had
also allegedly taken money in a similar manner from various other people, they
said.
He was booked
under IPC Sections 384 (extortion) and 506 (criminal intimidation), they said
adding that the matter was being probed further. — PTI
.JPG)
.JPG)
