3 booked on charges of robbery, abduction, illegal money lending

Pune: A 38-year-old building material supplier from Sangvi has lodged a complaint with the Yerawada police accusing a man with criminal antecedents and the latter’s two aides of abducting him and his three associates.
In his complaint, he also said the accused had assaulted and robbed him of cash Rs82,000 over a loan dispute.
The police said the complainant, Santosh Timbole, was arrested in 2016 and lodged in the Yerawada central jail in a cheating case registered in Wakad.
He got friendly with the criminal and his two aides, who were also in jail at that time. As the complainant was not getting bail and needed money for his family, he took a Rs10 lakh loan at a 10% interest per annum from the criminal on September 22, 2019.
The complainant said in his statement that by August 2021, he had repaid a total Rs21 lakh in three phases to the criminal through his wife and driver.
In October 2022, he was released on bail. Soon after, the criminal and his aides started harassing him for unpaid interest on loan and demanded an additional Rs20 lakh, the complainant told the police.
Around 1.30pm on Thursday, the trio called the complainant near a mall on the Pune-Ahmednagar road and later at Gunjan Chowk from where they abducted him and took him to Dattawadi in a car, assaulted and robbed him, Timbole told the police. They then left him in the Deccan area.
Senior inspector Balkrishna Kadam from Yerawada police on Friday said, “Timbole had sought time to pay more money because he was released on bail a few months ago. After the criminal threatened to chop one of his hands, he approached us. We conducted a preliminary inquiry and lodged a complaint relating to armed robbery, abduction and wrongful restraint under the Indian Penal Code and Money Lending Act.”
He said, “A police team has been formed to arrest the criminal and his aides at the earliest.”