Pune: The Sangvi police on Monday arrested three men who claimed to be volunteers of a Ganapati Mandal in Dapodi and allegedly extorted Rs 1,000 from a security supervisor of a housing society in Pimple Saudagar on the intervening night of Aug 30 and 31.The supervisor (44) lodged a complaint against the trio on Monday. A police team led by sub-inspector GS Dhage arrested Sachin Ovhal (45) and Ajay Thombare (40), both of Dapodi, and Shubham Gaikwad (28) of old Sangvi under sections 308 (extortion) and 329 (criminal trespass) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).Dhage said when the security supervisor and two guards were closing the main gate of the society; the three men forced the guard to open the gate again and entered inside on Saturday late night. “They told the complainant and guards to call the chairman of the society to the gate to donate money to their Ganapati Mandal,” Dhage said.The officer said one of them even gave a receipt of Rs 3,500 to the complainant and told him to inform the chairman to transfer the money from a UPI ID. He even mentioned a cellphone number on the back of the receipt. “They threatened the complainant that they would come again if the money was not transferred. They abused the complainant and forcibly took Rs1,000 from him,” Dhage said.The officer said the police traced the cellphone number the trio mentioned on the receipt. “We asked them to show us their Ganapati Mandal and took them to Dapodi on Tuesday. We found that they were not related to any such mandal. We suspect that they may have printed fake receipt books to extort money,” Dhage said.The officer said the trio targeted the Pimple Saudagar area to get easy money from housing societies. “Two of them have previous cases registered against them. We are investigating if they extorted money from more societies,” Dhage said.
