Daman Congress president Ketan Patel arrested

Surat: Daman and Diu Congress president Ketan Patel was arrested by Daman police from Mumbai on Wednesday for his alleged involvement in an extortion case. The accused, produced in a court in Daman on Thursday, was remanded in police custody for a day.

Ketan Patel was brought to Daman from Mumbai after his

arrest

and produced in a local court with a request for custody for investigation of the extortion case registered under Indian Penal Code section 384 against him on September 11. The complaint was lodged by an officer of a polyester yarn manufacturer. Police refused to reveal the complainant’s identity.

“The complainant alleged in his complaint that Patel was demanding Rs5 lakh through cheque and Rs2 lakh cash from the company for using water sourced from panchayat area,” said B K Singh, inspector general of police, Daman.

“The complainant company had been paying money to him since June 2017 but recently decided to approach police. We are yet to find out if anyone else was involved in this,” Singh said. Once the offence was registered, Patel was asked by police several times to register his statement but he never did. Police went to his residence and pasted notices at multiple locations asking him to come to the police station for registering his statement when they failed to locate him. “He was seen during the same period at public functions, but he did not come to the police station. We nabbed him when we got exact information about his location,” police said.

Patel was booked in another case on September 14 after a car being used by him was found with a sticker of ministry of home affairs. “The vehicle is registered in the name of some other person but it was being used by Patel,” police said.