Dawood aide Tarique Parveen arrested in extortion case involving Param Bir Singh

Thane: Tarique Parveen, an alleged aide of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, was arrested by Thane police on Friday in an extortion case where IPS officer Param Bir Singh is one of the accused. Tarique Abdul Karim Merchanta alias Tarique Parveen (55), who was already in jail in another case, was wanted in the case registered with the Thane Nagar police station here, an official said. The present FIR names over 20 persons including Singh, who had been police commissioner of Mumbai and Thane, and some other police officers. It was filed on the complaint of builder Ketan Tanna, who alleged that Singh and other officers extorted money from him by threatening to frame him up in false cases when Singh was Thane police commissioner. Parveen, accused in another extortion case, was lodged in the Taloja jail. A court in Mumbai on Friday ordered that he be handed over to Thane police. Thane police produced him before a local court which remanded him in police custody till 22 September. Singh has not been arrested in the case so far. He was transferred from the post of Mumbai police commissioner in March in the aftermath of the “Antilia bomb scare incident’’. He later accused then Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh of corruption, which led to the minister’s eventual resignation.