3 cops held for extortion

PUNE, July 16: Three constables posted at the Pune police headquarters in Shivajinagar were yesterday arrested on the charge of extorting a businessman after threatening to implicate him in a criminal case.

The arrests were made by the crime branch sleuths after the businessman, Kishore D Keshwani of Sadhu Vaswani Kunj Housing Society, lodged a formal complaint at the Deccan Gymkhana police station last afternoon, police said.

The three constables, Raju K Manche, Pradip D Khaladkar, Karim Mohammed Sharif Shaikh had allegedly extracted Rs 350 from Keshwani late on July 8 night. The incident came to light when Keshwani moved an application before Pune’s Police Commissioner K K Kashyap couple of days back.