Mumbai cops arrest suspended IPS officer Saurabh Tripathi’s brother-in-law in angadia extortion case

PTI, Apr 6, 2022, 10:19 AM IST

Mumbai: A Mumbai crime branch team probing the angadia (traditional couriers) extortion case has arrested assistant sales tax commissioner Ashutosh Mishra, brother-in-law of suspended IPS officer Saurabh Tripathi, from Basti in Uttar Pradesh, a police official said on Wednesday.

During the investigation, the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) found that Mishra had received the money allegedly extorted by DCP Tripathi, who is posted in Mumbai, he said.

The CIU team apprehend Mishra, an Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax, from Basti Tuesday, the official said.

Mishra was produced before a court in Basti which granted his transit remand to the Mumbai Police, he said.

Angadias are traditional couriers who deliver cash sent by traders from one state to another. Angadia system is by and large used in the jewellery business.

A complaint filed last December by the Angadia Association in south Mumbai had alleged that Tripathi demanded Rs 10 lakh per month from them as a bribe to allow them to run their business smoothly.

The complaint had initially named three policemen of the Lokmanya Tilak Marg police station. The officers- inspector Om Wangate, API Nitin Kadam and PSI Samadhan Jamdade, and a domestic help of Tripathi, were arrested in the case.

The Maharashtra government suspended Tripathi, who is a wanted accused in the extortion case, last month. He is yet to be arrested.

As per the complaint lodged by angadias, the accused officials had allegedly extorted money from them on several occasions in December by threatening to tip off the Income Tax department about their cash movements and business activities.

The angadia association also claimed that the arrested officers had detained a few angadias on multiple occasions last December and allegedly extorted over Rs 15-20 lakh from them by threatening to book them in a case or tip the Income Tax department about their illegal activities.

The angadias’ complaint was probed by Additional Commissioner (South Region) Dilip Sawant on directions of the then city police commissioner Hemant Nagrale.