Gujarat: 19 cops booked in kidnapping, extortion of Kutch firm staffer

Bhuj, Feb 17 (PTI) Two superintendents of police (SPs) and three other senior policemen are among 19 persons against whom a case has been registered in connection with the kidnapping and extortion of an employee of a firm in Gujarat's Kutch district, police said on Saturday.

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

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

The probe agency, in the release, did not disclose the exact roles of the accused police officers, citing that it would affect the investigation.

Former Kutch (East) SPs GV Barot and Bhavna Patel and DySPs RD Desai, DS Vaghela and VJ Gadhvi, and sub-inspector N K Chauhan have been named in the FIR, the release stated.

The complainant worked at Electrotherm Limited in 2011 and later tendered his resignation, which was repeatedly rejected by company owners Shailesh Bhandari and Anurag Bhandari.

The Bhandaris were accused of allegedly kidnapping the complainant when he refused to become the firm's director after trying to resign unsuccessfully, the release said.

In December 2015, Seerwani was allegedly kidnapped and held captive in the company bungalow in Ahmedabad, where he was forced to sign blank papers to give away his properties, along with cash and gold worth lakhs, it said.

A case has been registered against the accused under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 347 and 348 (wrongful confinement and extortion), and 364 (kidnapping to murder), among other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Arms Act, the release said.

The complainant and his wife had approached the concerned authorities between December 6, 2015 and February 4, 2016 to get an FIR registered against the accused, it said.

However, when no action was taken, they moved the high court for directions to register an FIR, it said.

In its order dated October 10, 2019, the high court directed the authorities to register an FIR, but the accused got a stay from the Supreme Court. The stay was lifted on January 16 this year, the release said. PTI