Liquor contractor alleges extortion by policemen in Chandigarh

A case was registered on Sunday against unidentified persons after a liquor contractor alleged that a few Chandigarh police personnel were extorting money from him and submitted CCTV footage of the ‘extortionists’ to the police.

The liquor contractor (name withheld) in his complaint alleged that Chandigarh police personnel had been extorting money from him for the past few months.

As it was not verified whether the men in the CCTV footage were police personnel, a case against unknown persons was registered.

The liquor contractor has also sent the footage to senior police officials, sources have said.

Commenting on the matter, a senior police officer privy to the matter said the liquor contractor ran six liquor shops in the city and had alleged that he was paying Rs 96,000 a month in extortion money.

Sources, however, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the men seen in the footage were from a specialised investigation wing of the police department.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kuldeep Singh Chahal said, “We have received the complaint and the video clip. After identification of the accused we will take action against them.”

The case was registered under Section 383 (extortion) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 13(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act at the Sector 39 police station.

Police officials said they are trying to verify whether the accused were actually cops or impersonators.

A few days before, Ranjit Singh, the person in charge of the operations cell in the union territory, was accused of trying to extort Rs 2.5 lakh from a liquor contractor. The name of the contractor from Sector 21 had come up after 300 bottles of liquor were seized while being transported to Himachal Pradesh in a consignment of fish.

Ranjit Singh had allegedly sought a bribe for not registering a case against the contractor, who informed senior police officials about the matter. Singh was transferred to police lines on Thursday and also faces a departmental inquiry.