6 members of Kanjarbhat panchayat arrested for extortion of family

PUNE Six members of a jaat panchayat of the Kanjarbhat community have been arrested for extortion and social boycott of a family in Saswad, after the family, allegedly, refused to let the jaat (caste) panchayat interfere in a land dispute, officials said on Sunday.

The six men have been identified as Suresh Ratan Binawat (65), Sampat Pannalal Binawat (56), Anand Ramchandra Binawat (50) all residents of Satavnagar in Mohammadwadi, Hadapsar; Nandu Antram Rajput (55) and Munna Ramesh Kachrawat (57), both residents of Warje; and Devanand Raju Kumbhar (51), a resident of Dhankawadi.

One person of the total of seven booked in the case is yet to be arrested.

“We have invoked the section for extortion too. They will be produced in court and we will try to get custody as we plan to analyse their voice and video samples with the ones that are in circulation and have been provided by the complainant too,” said Abhinav Deshmukh, superintendent of Pune rural police.

A case was registered after a complaint filed by Rita Kumbhar (32) a resident of Dhankawadi, Pune.

The jaat panchayat tried to get themselves involved in an issue related to the property that belonged to Kumbhar’s late father who died of Covid-19.

However, as the family resisted their involvement, the jaat panchayat members alleged abused the complainant’s mother. Eventually, the family members were boycotted and a demand was made for Rs 1 lakh, alcohol and meat for the panchayat, according to the police complaint.

A case under Section 384 (extortion) of Indian Penal Code and Sections of the Prohibition of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2017 has been registered.

Earlier, leader of the opposition in the state legislative council Pravin Darekar, and deputy speaker Neelam Gorhe, had raised the case demanding stringent action against the caste panchayat.

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