The Navi Mumbai Police is on the lookout for sacked IAS officer Puja Khedkar‘s family members. The reports of the manhunt come after the police rescued a truck driver from Khedkar’s Pune home a few days back.
A police official has said that they are trying to trace the family but all their phones are switched off, and there have been no online transactions from them since Sunday. CCTV footage around the bungalow is now being checked to find out which vehicle they used to escape.
Two cases registered against Khedkar’s family
The Navi Mumbai Police have booked Puja’s parents and their bodyguard for allegedly abducting the truck cleaner after his truck brushed against their SUV. Meanwhile, Pune Police have filed another case for stopping officers from entering their house. The Police believe that the accused may soon seek anticipatory bail and could try to remain out of reach until then. Multiple teams from Navi Mumbai and Pune are working together to track them down.
What exactly transpired?
The case started on September 13 at a traffic junction on the Mulund-Airoli road. A concrete mixer truck accidentally brushed against a car with a Pune number plate. The two men in the car then confronted truck driver Chandrakumar Chavan and cleaner Prahlad Kumar, a 22-year-old from Turbhe MIDC in Navi Mumbai. Kumar was allegedly forced into their car under the pretext of being taken to the police station. When Chavan could not reach Kumar by phone, the truck owner filed a kidnapping complaint at Rabale police station.
Links to Khedkar family
The investigation later revealed the car was driven by Puja’s father, Dilip Khedkar, a retired Maharashtra government officer who had contested state and national elections unsuccessfully in the past, along with his bodyguard. The SUV was registered in the name of Puja’s mother, Manorama, who also tried to stop police from entering their home.
Puja herself was sacked from the IAS last year after the UPSC found she had cheated by wrongly claiming caste and disability quota benefits.