SP-rank officer gets lifer extortion case

Jalgaon: A Maharashtra court has sentenced a superintendent of police (SP)-rank officer and another person to life imprisonment in a 2009 kidnapping and extortion case. Jalgaon sessions judge P Y Ladekar convicted Manoj Lohar, who is presently posted at the Home Guard Department in Mumbai in a senior administrative position, and his relative Dheeraj Yevle on January 16. 

The court pronounced the sentence on Saturday and also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each on the duo. Lohar and Yevle were convicted under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 346 (wrongful confinement in secret), 364-A (kidnapping for ransom), 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion) and 506 (criminal intimidation). 

According to the prosecution, Lohar had in 2009 forcibly kept the then zilla parishad member, Uttam Mahajan, confined at his office at Chalisgaon in Jalgaon district of North Maharashtra and two other places for two days in a bid to extort Rs 25 lakh from him.