Pune: The Sangvi police on Wednesday arrested two people, including a transgender person, on the charge of abducting a property broker and extorting Rs1.6 lakh from him between Sept 8 and 9.Senior inspector Jitendra Koli of the Sangvi police said, “We have charged the two under relevant sections pertaining to abduction, extortion and robbery.”Another officer of the Sangvi police said, “Since Aug 28, one of the two accused kept contacting the broker under the pretext of investing in property. The man was forcing the broker to meet at some place. The victim, however, did not want to meet any unknown person that too at an unknown place.”He said, the victim, however, was convinced to meet the man on Sept 8 at a location, shared by the accused, in Sangvi. When the broker visited that location, the officer said, the accused forced him to visit his flat on the fourth floor of a building.According to the police, the victim raised alarm regarding this, but no one from the building came forward to help him.“When the man and the victim reached former’s flat, a transgender person was already there. The two accused then stripped the victim and clicked his photographs. They snatched cellphone and Rs1,000 from him. They then threatened to share these photographs with his family members and implicate the victim for rape,” the officer said.The officer said the transgender then demanded Rs 4 lakh from the victim to avoid sharing photographs otherwise threatened to lodge a complaint of rape against him. “The duo also transferred Rs 1 lakh from his two bank accounts using victim’s cellphone and obtained a personal loan of Rs 60,000 in the name of the victim,” the officer said.To threaten the victim, the duo even took him to a nearby police chowke, where the victim could not tell the truth to cops and pushed to settle the matter and went along with the duo. “The accused then went to the victim’s flat to collect the latter’s debit cards and tried to withdraw cash from different kiosks, but did not succeed,” he said.The officer said they let the victim go in the early hours of Sept 9 by threatening him to pay the remaining amount by evening. “The victim returned home and later lodged a complaint with the police on Sept 9,” the officer said.He said the police were investigating if the transgender and his accomplice were involved in other similar crimes.
