Gujarat: Five of 19 senior police officers indicted in kidnapping, extortion case of Kutch company employees

A case has been registered against 19 people, including two police chiefs and three other senior police officials, against an employee of a company in Gujarat’s Kutch district who was kidnapped and blackmailed, police said on Saturday.

The Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Thursday registered an FIR against two SPs, three DySPs, a sub-inspector and the owner of Electrotherm Limited, among others, nearly a month after the Supreme Court lifted the stay on the Gujarat High Court order. Investigative agencies will do the same, they said.

According to a press release issued by the CID, Parmanad Seerwani, a resident of Gandhidham in Kutch district, lodged a police complaint accusing two company owners and 11 others of kidnapping and extortion in December 2015.

In a press release, the investigating agency did not reveal the specific role of the accused police officers, saying it would affect the investigation. Former Kutch (East) police officers GV Barot and Bhavna Patel, DySPs RD Desai, DS Vaghela and VJ Gadhvi, and sub-inspector NK Chauhan have been named in the FIR, the release said.

The complainant was working with Electrotherm Limited in 2011 and later offered to resign, but was repeatedly rejected by the owners of the company, Shailesh Bhandari and Anurag Bhandari. The Bhandari family was accused of allegedly kidnapping the complainant after he refused to become a director of the company after unsuccessfully trying to resign, the release said.

In December 2015, Selwani was allegedly kidnapped and held captive in his company’s bungalow in Ahmedabad, where he was forced to sign blank documents and hand over his property along with cash and gold worth one lakh rupees . Cases have been filed under Sections 406 (Criminal breach of trust), 420 (Cheating), 323 (Intentionally causing hurt), 347 and 348 (Wrongful imprisonment and extortion) and 364 (Kidnapping to murder). The defendant filed a case. Relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Arms Act, the release said.

The report stated that the complainant and his wife contacted the authorities concerned between December 6, 2015 and February 4, 2016, seeking registration of an FIR against the accused. However, as no action was taken, they approached the High Court seeking directions to register an FIR. The High Court in its order dated October 10, 2019, directed the authorities to register an FIR, but the accused obtained a stay from the Supreme Court. The ban was lifted on January 16 this year, the press release stated.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from associated news agency – PTI)