Pune: Dehu Road police on Wednesday arrested three men on the charge of extorting money from a building contractor by threatening to stop his construction work. The accused also allegedly forcibly occupied one of the flats in the building and demanded Rs 3 lakh from him to vacate it, an officer from the Dehu Road police said.The trio has been charged under sections 308 (extortion), 351 (criminal intimidation) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). A 44-year-old building contractor from Thergaon lodged a complaint against the trio.An officer from the Dehu Road police said the complainant was constructing a residential building at Mamurdi. Since Feb this year, the trio had allegedly been harassing him with the help of some locals, forcing him to stop the construction work. “The trio had taken Rs50,000 from him to help restart the work,” the officer said. He said the trio later threatened to stop the complainant’s work again and allegedly extorted Rs7 lakh from him at regular intervals. They were also demanding an additional Rs5 lakh from him, of which they allegedly recovered Rs2.5 lakh through a cheque. “One of them then threatened to implicate the complainant in a false Atrocities case and demanded Rs9.7 lakh more from him,” he said.The officer said that after the building was completed, the accused allegedly forcibly occupied one of the flats and demanded Rs 3 lakh from the complainant to vacate it. Frustrated by the harassment, the building contractor approached the police on Wednesday and lodged a complaint. “Our investigation is underway,” the officer said.
