ATS begins probe against 3 Junagadh cops accused of extortion

Gandhinagar: The Gujarat Director General of Police (DGP) on Monday issued a directive instructing the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) to investigate a case involving two police inspectors and an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) from Junagadh. The officers are accused of attempting to extort Rs 25 lakh from a Kerala resident in exchange for unfreezing his bank account. Deepan Bhadran, DIG of ATS, stated that ATS was assigned the probe a day after the offense was registered, and the ATS has now taken over the investigation.

It is learned that DySP Shankar Chaudhary will lead the investigation into the case, which involves Junagadh Inspector Taral Bhatt, Junagadh Special Operations Group (SOG) Cybercrime Cell Inspector A M Gohil, and ASI Dipak Jani.

The accused police officers faced the filing of a First Information Report (FIR) after an internal investigation uncovered their involvement in freezing around 335 bank accounts under the guise of an ongoing investigation.

In December 2023, Kartik Bhandari, a resident of Kerala, found that his bank account had been frozen. Upon reaching out to the Junagadh police, Jani and Gohil allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 25 lakh, claiming they had received confidential information from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) regarding suspicious transactions. They threatened to escalate the case to the ED if the bribe was not paid. Following legal counsel, Bhandari contacted the Inspector General (IG) of Junagadh range, leading to an inquiry conducted by Inspector S N Gohil. DeshGujarat