Akela
A person accused of extortion, Lakhi alias Kari Makhija wrote a letter from Adharwadi Jail in Kalyan to Bombay High Court urging the court to take action against errant officers of Anti Extortion Cell (AEC), Thane. Bombay High Court was convinced with the contents of the letter and converted it into a Writ Petition against Senior Inspector Rajkumar Kothmire and others.
Kari Makhija (52), a resident of Ulhasnagar-1 in Thane district of Maharashtra, was arrested on February 8, 2020 by team of Rajkumar Kothmire for allegedly demanding extortion money from Ulhasnagar based businessman Rajesh Idnani alias Raju Shera. After spending 42 days in jail he was finally granted bail by Kalyan Court on April 7, 2020 on Rs 15,000 surety.
On March 5, 2020 Kari Makhija wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court and other prominent authorities from jail, complaining against Rajkumar Kothmire. Kari Makhija claimed he was falsely implicated in an extortion case and a conspiracy was hatched against him by politicians, builders, contractors and so called social workers in Ulhasnagar.
The copy of the letter is available with ABI.
According to the letter, Kari Makhija has exposed corrupt practices in Municipal corporation, police, builders and government land encroachers in the city. He has exposed the Konark and Eagle company’s scam at Goa, Karnataka and Ulhasnagar too. For that he has been awarded by the Central government a total of Rs 4, 11,176 from time to time.
Kari Makhija claims that Rajkumar Kothmire demanded Rs 25 lakh from him and that he succeeded to extort Rs 8 lakh from him on three occasions. During panchnama at his Ulhasnagar office he took Rs 5 lakh. Once Rs 2,50,000 and on the other time Rs 25,000 were taken from his AEC office through Makhija’s man Gulshan Kataria. Gulshan Kataria was unnecessarily thrashed by Kothmire’s men, causing a grave injury to his hand. Interestingly, when Gulshan Kataria paid Rs 2.5 lakh to Rajkumar Kothmire at his AEC office, a constable counted the money and found Rs 11,000 missing. He abused Kataria and Makhija and forced them to pay Rs 11,000 at any cost.
According to Kari Makhija, Inspector Kalamkar has also planned to book him under molestation or rape charges by arranging two call girls. “16 February 2020 ko policewale mujhe Ambivali (near Titwala) ke dhabe par lekar gaye. Vahaan sabke samne ek policewala call girl se gale mila. Dhabe ka bill bharne ke liye un logon ne mujhe gandi-gandi galiyaan deen,” said Kari Makhija.
The letter also claims that Kari Makhija’s enemy Dhalu Nathani and Amrit Bathija met Rajkumar Kothmire at AEC office and paid him Rs 2,00,000 in his presence. Kothmire and others forced Makhija to withdraw the court case against Dhalu Nathani. Kari Makhija has a video recording in his possession in which a person claimed that few persons contributed and paid Rs 16 lakh to Rajkumar Kothmire to book Kari Makhija in false case.
A police constable abused over Sindhi Community’s god ‘Jhulelal’ too, adding a regional and communal angle to this dispute.
Fed up and frustrated, with this high handed behaviour from Police, Kari Makhija wrote a six page letter from the jail addressing the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court. The Chief Justice, convinced with the merits of the letter, felt that the allegations merited an enquiry and hence converted the letter into a Writ Petition against Rajkumar Kothmire
महाराष्ट्र पुलिस अपनी विश्वसनीयता खोती जा रही है। सेवा के कार्य को व्यापार बनाकर रख दिया है।