Extortionist arrested for allegedly harassing a pet owner from Thane.
Khushi Shah – Mumbai Uncensored, 18th May 2022
An FIR was registered against Lata Parmar, president of PFA’s Mumbai Unit and her team members on April 14 for allegedly forging a document and using the stamps of Sion police on the letterhead of PFA while taking custody of a Dalmatian from a Thane resident.
Ravi Vikram Bhatnagar, an animal activist alerted the police about the forged document and said that two more accused were yet to be arrested and that these people were using Maneka Gandhi’s name and extorting people.
Maneka Gandhi is the founder of People For Animals and is currently the chairperson of this organisation. Whilst serving India as a political member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), she founded India’s largest organisation for animal rights and welfare, People For Animals.
Following this complaint she tweeted a post that read-
“***IMPORTANT*** A decision has been taken to dissolve the People For Animals, Mumbai Unit-1. As on 15.04.2022, the PFA Mumbai Unit 1 ceases to exist.”
Days after Maneka Gandhi severed ties with the Mumbai Unit 1 of her non-profit People for Animals (PFA) over allegations of extortion, a woman, Bimlesh Navani, associated with the organisation was arrested for allegedly harassing a pet owner from Thane. As per the FIR, a few PFA members visited a site of Vedant Construction on Ghodbunder Road, Thane, on March 3. They found a Dalmatia dog and told its owner Akshay Zade that they were taking the canine and Zade could get it back after showing the necessary documents. The same day, Bhatnagar, who is a friend of Zade, came across a photo of the dog on social media. He found something was off in the documents uploaded along with the picture of the dog and alerted the cops. The Sion police have also booked Lata Parmar, president of PFA’s Mumbai Unit 1, in the case. Another accused, Mohit Chawre, has got anticipatory bail.
An animal lover, who runs NGO, Salim Charania and had filed a writ petition in the high court against Parmar for misusing her power as president and filied 55 false complaints against him at various police stations. He said, “In 2020, the raid was conducted at my house in Vasai where I kept stray dogs for allegedly breeding dogs and selling them. However, the police did not find anything against me. Parmar targeted me as my NGO was working in the market. She used to call the police and Maneka Gandhi to complain against me. VVMC doctors also gave me a clean chit.’’
Simalar cases involving Parmar misusing her power under the name of the organisation and Maneka Gandhi were seen.
An Assistant doctor Kuldeep Mukane, also victim, spoke about how in January, a month after performing a surgery on a cat the owner came to us complaining that the cat had an infection. At that time, Lata Parmar had demanded Rs 1 lakh from them to not register a complaint. She also approached Gandhi and got Anchole police station to file a case against them.
Similarly Dr Dattatray Bhausaheb Raje’s clinic in Kalyan was shut down after Lata Parmar and her team in December 2021 informed Tilak Nagar police station that they was running a racket of breeding dogs at my clinic. They even got Maneka Gandhi and BMC officers involved. The civic body shut down his clinic.
PFA claims to be India’s largest animal welfare group with 26 hospitals, 165 units, 60 mobile units and 2.5 lakh members. Its stated aim is to open an animal welfare centre in every district in the country. It runs animal shelters, provides ambulance services for animals, sterilisation, rehabilitation of sick/needy animals, treatment, disaster rescue for animals. It lobbies for animal issues on different levels like education, sensitisation and legislation.
