Police custody for Bhangale till April 6

The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) on Friday remanded ethical hacker Manish Bhangale to police custody till April 6.

Bhangale was arrested on Friday morning for allegedly making false complaint against former revenue minister Eknath Khadse. He had accused Khadse of having ‘links’ with fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim. He had even claimed that Khadse had exchanged several phone calls with Dawood, who according to him is staying in Pakistan. However, after conducting a thorough probe, the Mumbai Police’s Crime Branch trashed all allegations of Bhangale.

In its application seeking remand, the Crime Branch contended that Bhangale had created a fake profile of Dawood’s wife and also fake email ids along with fake documents.

Public Prosecutor Rajendra Suryavanshi said, “The agency wants to recover Bhangale’s mobile phone and laptop, from which he allegedly created all the fake profiles and email ids. The agency also wants to ascertain as to if Bhangale himself was operating the profiles or someone else used it at his behest.”

After hearing the submissions of Crime Branch, Magistrate RK Deshpande said, “Considering the seriousness of the nature of allegations against the accused (Bhangale), I am of the view that custodial interrogation is necessary.”

While speaking with the Free Press Journal, Sanjay Saxena, Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police (Crime) said that Bhangale had downloaded all the documents pertaining to the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL). “He had downloaded the documents of PTCL from internet and had morphed the same by adding names and numbers. We want to ascertain his motive for making such allegations,” Saxena said.