Adv kidnaps client for ₹3-cr ransom, nabbed

NAVI MUMBAI: The Kharghar police arrested a 36-year-old lawyer for allegedly kidnapping one of his clients and demanding a ransom of ₹3Cr in the first week of April.

The arrested tested positive after the arrest and has been admitted to a hospital in Panvel.

According to the police, the complainant, 32-year-old Navnath Gole, is into export and import business. He was arrested by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Ahmedabad police on January 27 after a business deal went wrong and was booked for cheating.

“Gole’s wife then met a lawyer, Vimal Jha, to bail her husband out. Jha demanded a fee of ₹70 lakh. Gole’s wife paid him ₹12 lakh through RTGS and the remaining ₹58 lakh in cash. Gole was finally released on bail by the Ahmedabad session court on March 3,” said a police officer from Kharghar police station.

“A few days later, Jha met Gole and demanded ₹3Cr. He threatened Gole to cancel his bail and put him in jail again in case he failed to pay the money.

We arrested Jha from Nashik. We booked him for extortion for ransom, kidnapping to illegally confine and under several other sections. He was tested Covid positive the very next day and the court granted him judicial custody.

BIMAL BIDVE, inspector, Kharghar police station

On April 2nd night, Jha called Gole to his office at Belapur and demanded the money again. When Gole refused to pay the money, Jha, with the help of three other people, made him sit in a white car and took him to Kharghar first and then to a farmhouse at Karjat.

“Meanwhile, they also confiscated his three mobile phones and started assaulting him. They took him to different places in Raigad and Nashik, and kept insisting on transferring some of his property to Jha’s name.

The kidnappers assaulted him as Gole kept refusing to do so. The following day, they left Gole at Kharghar and threatened to kill him if he revealed anything about the ransom and the assaults to anyone,” the officer said.

Gole, however, approached the police and narrated the entire incident.

Bimal Bidve, inspector from Kharghar police station, said, “Following a complaint registered by Gole and his family, we arrested Jha from Nashik. We have booked him for extortion for ransom, kidnapping to illegally confine and under several other sections.

“However, he was tested Covid positive the very next day and hence the court granted him judicial custody (and not police custody). He is now admitted to a hospital in Panvel. We are now looking for the other three accomplices and hope to arrest all of them soon.”