24-yr-old held for extorting vendors in south east Delhi

New Delhi: A 24-year-old man who used to extort money from the vendors of the vegetable market was arrested from Sriniwas Puri area of South East Delhi.

Police claimed that the father and brothers of the accused are also hardcore criminals and wanted the supremacy in the market.

The accused was identified as Rashid, a resident of South East Delhi. His father, Md Umar, had nine cases against his name.

Both brothers of the accused are registered bad characters (BCs) of Police Station Amar Colony and involved in more than 50 criminal cases.

DCP (South East) Chinmoy Biswal said Okhla Subzi Mandi is a big wholesale vegetable and fruit market also situated in Sriniwaspuri.

It caters needs of people of South East Delhi as well as Noida and Faridabad. Vendors from NCR region came here to sell their vegetables and fruits.

"The accused started coming to mandi along with his father. They all started gymming with the sole purpose of threatening and extorting vendors in the market," said the DCP.

He said the accused started extorting money from small laborers as well as vendors and used to threaten them with dire consequences if anyone tried to report it to police. They procured illegal firearms to threaten traders of the market.

Police claimed accused brothers named Aabid and Javed have been arrested many times by the police in the cases of robbery, possession of illegal arms, theft, assault but as and when they are bailed out, they continue with these activities.