Ex-DGP Sanjay Pandey Testifies to Thane Police Regarding Extortion Allegations
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Thane (Maharashtra), December 11 (NationPress) - The former Director General of Police of Maharashtra, Sanjay Pandey, along with his previous role as Commissioner of Police, appeared before the Thane Police on Wednesday to give his statement linked to an extortion case filed against him and others back in August.
The case was registered at the Thane Nagar Police Station following a complaint from a businessman in Mumbai, Sanjay Punamiya. The investigation is being conducted by the Crime Branch Unit 5, located in Wagle Estate.
After spending approximately three hours recording his statement, Pandey, who had been granted protection against arrest until January 3, 2025, by the Bombay High Court in October 2024, was permitted to leave.
Previously, two FIRs were filed against Punamiya during the tenure of the former Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) regime when Pandey held two significant positions within the state police.
Subsequently, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the cases against Punamiya, and after their inquiry, they submitted a closure report identifying another former senior officer from the Mumbai police as an accused.
Punamiya alleged that Pandey had abused his authority by instigating an unlawful investigation against him in a 2016 case still active at the Thane Nagar Police Station. He claimed that Pandey extorted money from him and other business individuals by threatening to involve them in fabricated cases, creating false documents, etc., between May 2021 and June 2024.
According to Punamiya, Pandey and several others proposed that he could avoid legal trouble if he provided statements implicating certain notable leaders from the (then) Opposition in specific land deal controversies, which he categorically refused.
Additional individuals implicated in this case include a business competitor of Punamiya and Mumbai realtor Shyamsundar Agrawal, along with his relatives Shubham Agrawal and Sharad Agrawal, attorney Shekhar Jagtap, and two police officers - Inspector Manoj Patil and former Assistant Commissioner of Police Sardar Patil.
The controversial Pandey, who is a 1986 IPS officer and concluded his service as the Mumbai CP in June 2022, has previously faced scrutiny from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a suspected money-laundering case, which led to his arrest in relation to a CBI investigation concerning his business entity, iSEC Services Pvt Ltd, for various alleged dubious activities.
