Nagpur: There have been many cases where some people use the fear of law among the citizens to black-mail them. While some manage to get away with almost anything, but now the long arms of the law is closing its noose around these criminals.
In a recent case that come to fore , the victim identified as Sidharth Khobragade, a resident of Maitri Colony, Kapil Nagar had lodged a complaint with Mankapur Police Station alleging that five accused including two women have been blackmailing him and demanding an extortion amount of Rupees Five lakhs.
The accused have been identified as:
Gold Rate
05 April 2025
- Deepak Awale
- Dinesh Nagdive,
- Sunita Bulkar,
- Pushpa Nikhare
- One unidentified male accused
The victim alleged that the entire episode was a pre-planned game. The accused had approached him with a girl saying that they require Rs 20,000/- in order to secure an admission in some college. After that the accused and the girl provided a favorable atmosphere for the victim to fall into the trap and establish a physical relationship with the girl.
According to the pre-planned move, the girl started threatening the victim of lodging a complaint with the police alleging that the victim raped her.
The gang of accused then started blackmailing the victim. The accused then started demanding a huge sum of Rupees five lakhs from the victim for not reporting the matter with the police.
In March 2016, the accused had taken the ATM Card and the Pin-number from the victim Sidharth Khobragade. After that the accused took the victim Sidharth to Shegaon and Buldana by a four-wheeler. The accused took out Rs 70,000/- from his account using his ATM card. After that they came to Nagpur and dropped the victim Sidharth at his home and demanded a cheque of Rs 5 lakhs. The accused took the victim with them to the Bank and withdrew the amount. In this manner, the accused had fleeced Rs 3,70,000/- (Rupees three lakhs seventy thousand) from him showing the fear of the law and police.
The accused were not satisfied with this fleeced amount of Rs 3,70,000/-, they started demanding and pressurizing the victim for remaining Rs 1, 30,000/- (Rupees one lakh thirty thousand) from the victim.
When the victim expressed his failure in giving the remaining amount, they forcibly took him to Kanhan Police Station. After enquiry about the entire episode, the cop asked where was the first physical relations established, the girl said that it was Mankapur area. So the Senior cop of Kanhan Police Station asked the girl to lodge a complaint with Mankapur Police Station.
However, before the group went, the cop of Kanhan Police Station questioned the victim Sidharth about the alleged rape and refusal to marry the girl. However, when the victim Sidharth related the entire episode and how he got entrapped by the girl and how he was fleeced of Rs 3,70,000/- so far, the cop realized the entire case to be that of blackmailing. He informed the cop of Mankapur Police Station about how the girl is coming to Mankapur Police Station to register a case of rape and how she is part of the gang of blackmailer. When the cops of Mankapur asked about the name of the male member who had accompanied the girl, he immediately realized that he was the same man who was arrested by him in an earlier case of blackmailing. When the girl and the other accused reached the Mankapur Police, They made the victim Sidharth the complainant and the since the girl was lured by the gang-leader to trap young men, she was made the Government witness and booked all the other accused. However, the king-pin of the blackmailer’s gang Deepak Awale escaped enroute from Kanhan to Mankapur on the sly claiming to come with the lawyer.
Fleecing innocent youth
Reliable information claimed that the kingpin in this case Deepak Awale claims himself to be Editor of a Weekly Newspaper, Chief of Human Right Commission, and a very successful businessman. This kingpin Deepak Awale had allegedly made friendship with many cops of crime branch and cops of Detective branch of every police station under the guise of being a Press personnel. He then used to make them a party to his crime.
He used to lure young men to join his gang and then make them carry a parcel to be handed over to some person in one of the reputed hotels of the city and when the young man is delivering the parcel, his friends from the crime branch used to arrest him and then fleece a sizeable amount claiming that he was involved in transporting drugs (which in fact used to be only talcum powder or salt. The fleeced amount used to be shared by him and his cop friends. Sources added that the kingpin in this case Deepak Awale has allegedly trained many girls from poor and needy families to entrap youngsters.
