Producer held for threats, extortion bid

Mumbai: The crime branch on Tuesday arrested film producer Satyendra Tyagi (37) on charges of extortion after director-choreographer Remo D’Souza, who is also his partner, complained that the former had sought gangster Ravi Pujari’s help to settle a financial dispute pertaining to a movie. Tyagi has been booked for extortion and putting a person in fear of death or of grievous hurt in order to commit extortion under IPC sections.
Confirming the arrest, public prosecutor Rajendra Suryavanshi said, “There was a dispute between Tyagi and the complaniant and the former allegedly hired a gangster to threaten him.”

According to the police complaint, Tyagi and D’Souza were co-producing a movie titled, ‘Death of Amar’, starring Rajeev Khandelwal, Zareen Khan and Prashant Narayanan, which is stuck with the censor board. The movie is about a struggling actor who is poisoned and how he spends the last few hours of his life to find out who is trying to kill him and why. For the movie to be released, Remo D’Souza Entertainment applied to the censor board for clearance. “But the censor board refused to release the movie without the other partner’s consent. Tyagi allegedly then roped in the gangster to threaten D’Souza,” said a source.

Pujari allegedly called up D’Souza and his wife and threatened them to settle the matter with Tyagi; he also demanded Rs 50 lakh as commission. D’souza then lodged a police complaint. “There is a financial dispute between the two partners, but as Tyagi used underworld elements to settle the score, we booked him,” said a senior police officer.

Last year, Tyagi had lodged an FIR with Sihani police in Ghaziabad alleging that D’Souza had hired gangsters to threaten him.