'Rs 100 crore for ticket to Maharashtra cabinet': Four arrested for attempting to extort money from MLAs

The Mumbai police has nabbed the four accused in an alleged case of extortion. They were offering cabinet seats in Maharashtra ahead of the reshuffle.

Pic Credit: File Photo

Mumbai: Mumbai Crime Branch on Monday arrested four persons for allegedly demanding Rs 100 crore for offering ministerial posts to MLAs in Maharashtra. This news comes ahead of the likely cabinet expansion in Maharashtra. Although the final date for the exercise is still under discussion, insiders in the BJP said cabinet expansion was high on the party`s agenda and will take place, in all probability, in the fourth week of July.

Maharashtra news: The accused tried to cheat 3 MLAs

In order to take advantage of the political situation, four accused tried to cheat 3 MLAs in the name of offering ministerial posts in the cabinet, Mumbai Crime Branch sources told ANI today morning. The arrested accused have been identified as Riyaz Sheikh (41 years, Kolhapur), Yogesh Kulkarni (age 57 years, arrested from Thane), Sagar Sangwai (37) and Zafar Ahmed Usmani (who was arrested from Mumbai).

Sources said that "one accused Riyaz Sheikh tried to contact MLA Rahul Kul via his personal assistant. The next day, the PA had a talk with MLA Kul, after which he called Shaikh to meet him at a hotel in Nariman Point. MLA Kul talked about a portfolio, on which accused Shaikh said that for this you will have to pay Rs 90 crores."The MLA informed the police about this and the police set a trap to nab the accused.

As the accused Sheikh reached the hotel at around 1.30 pm on Monday, the police took him into custody. In the hotel, MLA Kul, his PA and another BJP MLA were present in the hotel. During interrogation, Sheikh shared information about the role of two more accused, Kulkarni and Sangwai, following which they were also arrested from Thane late on Monday night. Kulkarni and Sangwai told that a person named Usmani had claimed that he knew a person in Delhi who was also involved in this matter.

After this, the police laid a trap and arrested Usmani on Tuesday morning and registered a case of fraud against the four accused and presented them in the Court, where the court sent them to police custody.The police is probing whether these people had cheated anyone else like this before.