3 policemen suspended over Rs 1 crore heist

Three policemen from Trombay police station have been suspended from service in connection with allegedly robbing a jeweller of Rs One crore. A senior police official said the decision had been taken after departmental inquiry into the issue.

According to police officials, the inquiry revealed that the policemen —two officers and a constable — were involved in several other extortion cases too. It was their daily routine to extort money from hotel owners and a few other members of the public, they said. The team of senior officials that conducted the inquiry registered the statements of those witnesses in this regard. After two weeks of painstaking inquiry, the report was submitted to the home department. The home department suspended the three policemen on its basis.

The policemen, who were arrested on December 22 and suspended from duty on January 6, have been identified as PSI Pankaj Khairnar (32), a Vashi resident, PSI Nilesh Kumar Sadanshiv (28), a resident of Kalyan and constable Janardan Raje (46) from Dombivali.

The case over which the policemen were arrested involved Mohommad Kadir, a jeweller from Karnataka who had come to Mumbai on December 20. When Mr Kadir took a bus for Karnataka and was on his way home the same day with '1 crore, he was allegedly kidnapped by the policemen and robbed of his money.