3 minutes of readingPuneUpdated: January 30, 2026 11:04 pm IST
A person claiming to be a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang allegedly made extortion calls to a Pimpri businessman and film financier.
The victim, Sunny Nana Waghchoure, 37, who had recently joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the presence of former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, lodged a complaint of receiving extortion threats at the Sant Tukaram Nagar police station in Pimpri Chinchwad on Tuesday.
According to the First Information Report (FIR), Waghchoure, a resident of Nehru Nagar in Pimpri, runs a scrap metal business through his steel trading company. He provides financing for Hindi films and has worked on the Bollywood film Zila Ghaziabad.
The FIR also mentions that Waghchoure appeared on Kapil Sharma’s comedy show and ‘The Khatra Khatra Show’ on television.
In the FIR, Waghchoure claimed that he has around 25 million followers on Instagram and became famous for wearing around three kilograms of gold ornaments at various social and commercial events.
According to the complaint, on the night of January 25, Waghchoure received two missed calls on WhatsApp from an international number. He didn’t answer the calls. Sometime later, he received a message saying, “Shubham Lonkar, please contact me” and again a WhatsApp call, which he responded to this time.
The caller identified himself as Shubham Lonkar, a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. Lonkar is a wanted accused in the murder case of former MLA Baba Siddique Bombay.
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The FIR mentions that the caller, claiming to be Lonkar, asked Waghchoure to search about him on Google. The next day, on the afternoon of January 26, Waghchoure again received a WhatsApp call from an international number. As he did not answer this call, after some time he received a WhatsApp message demanding an extortion amount of Rs 5 million from another international number. According to the FIR, in this message, Shubham Lonkar threatened Waghchoure to give him Rs 5 million in five days, or else he would be killed like Baba Siddique.
Waghchoure then contacted his lawyer, Atish Landge, and filed a police complaint. The police have booked the accused Shubham Lonkar under section 308 (5) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
The crime branch of Pimpri Chinchwad police is carrying out an investigation into this case. Police suspect that the accused may have used a virtual private network (VPN) to make extortion calls to Waghchoure. They are also investigating whether the call was actually made by Lonkar or another person who used his name for extortion.