Extortion racket: Scribe, cop & 4 more held

A wrong number, a sweet female voice on the phone and later some exchange of messages might land a man in deep trouble. Pawan realised it only after he developed friendship with a girl whom he never met but only listened to her over the phone. 

When the woman called Pawan to meet her at her place, little did he know that he has fallen for a honey trap and would have to shell out Rs 15 lakh to get out from the clutches of extortionists who had beautiful girls, a journalist and also a policeman in the gang.

The extortionists’ racket which comprised three women and three men including a Delhi Police constable was running in Burari area of North Delhi for a long time but the gang fell in the police net only after a complainant mustered courage to report the matter to the police which usually remains unreported due to public shame and fear of straining the family ties.

The Delhi Police got a complain from Pawan who works as a clerk in a hospital that he is being blackmailed and a huge sum of Rs 15 lakh has been extorted from him by a group of people.

The complainant told police that he was approached by a woman on phone who developed friendship with him. She asked him to meet her at her place. Initially reluctant, Pawan fell in the trap and reached at the address to meet the woman. 

After the two were inside a room, the other gang members — one of them posing as a female reporter and one posing as a policeman barged inside and started beating the victim. They demanded Rs 25 lakh from him to let him go. He arranged money from his friends and relatives and ended up paying Rs 15 lakh for his immediate release. He was released by the gang but not before he promised to pay the remaining amount of Rs 10 lakh on a later date. The victim, however, decided to approach police.

On working on the complaint, a head constable Shahir Khan zeroed in on a girl named Reena, alias Tabassum. She was arrested when she was going to attend her sister’s wedding. She spilled the beans about the other members involved in the gang. A journalist, Krishan Nand Bhat, was also arrested who runs a weekly newsletter. Later police arrested four more — Nidhi, Ankita, Jeet and Pradeep, a constable with the Delhi Police.

The targets were mostly known whom the group targeted after considerable recee of the financial status.

“When subjected to sustained interrogation, it was also revealed that a constable of the Delhi Police Pradeep Kumar was the mastermind of the racket. He was posted at P P Jharoda under Burari police station. In the present case, the mobile number of the complainant was provided by constable Pradeep Kumar as the complainant happened to be his brother-in-law. He kept rupees six lakh as his share of extortion,” said Joint CP, Crime, R S Yadav.