Employee of film company held in extortion case

MUMBAI: Parvez Qureshi a 45-year old employee of a film production firm who used to pass off inside information of his bosses to fugitive gangster Ezaz Lakhdawala was arrested by the Anti Extortion Cell of city police.
Interestingly the complaint was filed by one of the directors of Zahara production Shabana Hashmi who recently produced hindi debut `Barkha'.
Hashmi in her complant filed at crime branch had alleged that just a day after she threw party for the upcoming film in the month of June last year, she and her husband who runs a construction firm in Gujarat, started receiving overseas calls. In one of the tapped converstation Chhota Rajan aide Ezaz Lakhdawala had called her and demanded a sum of Rs 3 crores and also threatened her with dire consequences.
During the interception of the international calls and indebt inquiries of CDRs and other techniques revealed that inside informations of Zahara production was leaked by Qureshi.
''Immediately after we called Qureshi for questioning he started running away and finally disappeared for months. Recently the anti chain snatching Andheri unit got a wind of Qureshi and they nabbed him.''said an officer.
In past the city crime branch had arrested Khar Gymkhana member Ravi Punjabi and builder Rakesh Sharma for allegedly passing off information about the targets to fugitive gangster Ravi Pujari who in turn would call up the targets threatened and demand huge extortion.
Parvez Qureshi, a resident of Sakinaka village in Andheri who has been booked under the IPC sections of 387 of extortion, was arrested after a run of six months. Now police are interrogating Qureshi to know through whom and how he got in touch with fugitive gangster and whether he had passed on some businessmen or builders or film industry's numbers to gangsters.