MUMBAI, Sept. 26 -- Six men accused in a 2018 extortion case related to fugitive gangster Ramchandra, also known as "Guru" Satam, have been acquitted by a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court. The court held that the prosecution failed to prove their "guilt beyond doubt". Satam's gang has long been associated with extortion, murder, and other organised crimes in the city. Despite a decline in activity during the early 2000s, the gang has resurfaced in recent years, particularly targeting real estate developers. After Satam and his associates allegedly extorted money from builders and businessmen in the city between 2014 and 2017, one of their victims, whose identity remains unknown, filed a case in 2018 with the Azad Maidan police. The case was later transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department's detection crime branch (DCB-CID). The six accused, Amol Shankar Vichare, Bharat Pradeep Solanki, Rajesh Yashwant Ambre, Bipin Balaram Dhotre, Dipak Jayantilal Lodhiya, and Krishnakumar Nair, were charged under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Arms Act, and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). According to the prosecution, the gang had threatened several real estate developers with dire consequences for failing to meet their illegal demands. Satam had allegedly threatened the complainant to pay extortion money otherwise, he would murder him and his partner. In another instance, the court noted that Vichare had allegedly told another developer that he had murdered a builder in Parel, and Satam had reiterated the threats too. Investigators claimed to have recovered firearms, mobile phones, and incriminating documents from some of the accused, and alleged that Nair had helped channeling the money abroad to Satam. However, after a seven-year trial involving 29 prosecution witnesses, the court held that the evidence was "riddled with inconsistencies and lacked independent corroboration". Several complainants and key victims either did not testify or turned hostile (deviated from their expected testimony), while forensic and CCTV evidence was deemed inconclusive. Defence counsel MB Shirsat, representing Solanki, pointed out that the main witness Rajan Thomas had never been examined, despite being central to the allegations. Shirsat argued that this omission, coupled with contradictions in police testimony and the absence of corroborating material such as CCTV footage from Thomas's office, "fatally undermined the prosecution's case". Special judge Mahesh K Jadhav agreed that the prosecution had not proven its case, noting that the alleged recovery of firearms was doubtful, identification proceedings were unreliable, and call data records did not conclusively link the accused to Satam's syndicate....