Pune: The Wakad police on Thursday arrested an engineering student (19) of a city-based private college for trying to blackmail a traffic constable and demanding Rs 50,000 on Tuesday during a routine check.Machhindra Baramate, the constable (Wakad traffic division), lodged a complaint. The Wakad police on Thursday arrested the accused from Sambhajinagar and registered a case against his two accomplices under sections 308(2) [extortion] and 3(5) [common intention] of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).The student claimed that the constable had pocketed a Rs1,000 fine without issuing a receipt. The student and his aides also threatened to release the video of the incident.Baramate stopped the accused during a routine checking at Bhujbal Chowk in Wakad on Tuesday evening. He checked the vehicle’s details on an app and found a pending traffic challan of Rs13,000 from 2024. “Asked about the pending fine, the student agreed to pay Rs 500 online and Rs 500 in cash. The e-challan, however, accepts one challan payment at a time. So, the accused went from there and returned with Rs 1,000 cash,” an officer from the Wakad police said.He said the accused requested Baramate to accept the cash and pay Rs 1,000 online on his behalf. Due to some technical issue, it took some time to generate the receipt. The receipt was then immediately handed over to the accused.“Later, the accused and his two accomplices came to the Wakad traffic division and told one of the traffic constables that Baramate had taken Rs 1,000 from him as a fine. The accused also alleged that Baramate did not provide him with the receipt and pocketed that money. He claimed that he had recorded the entire incident and would make it public. The accused demanded Rs 50,000 from the constable and asked him to clear the pending fine of Rs 13,000 on his vehicle,” the officer said.Assistant police inspector Ambarish Deshmukh, who is investigating the case, said the student told the constables that he was a journalist and would use that video against them. His two accomplices also told the constable to pay and they would not release the video.“The trio did not know that one of the constables in the division was recording them. When they realised they were being recorded, they ran away. The traffic constables nabbed the student after a chase,” Deshmukh said.The officer said the police have identified the two accomplices. “We would soon arrest them,” the officer said. The arrested student was produced before a court on Thursday and sent to Yerawada central prison.
