Pay money, get police protection: Ludhiana man held for extortion, false claims

Akshwar Nath Mishra had allegedly taken ₹50,000 from a man to get his sister’s in-laws arrested for forcing her to abort her pregnancy

A labour leader purporting to have police contacts and extorting money from people after promising to get them justice or protection to carry out illegal activities such as sand mining was arrested on Monday.

A man has been held in Ludhiana for taking money from people in exchange of police help.

Akshwar Nath Mishra alias AN Mishra of Urban Estate, Jamalpur, was arrested and an FIR lodged against him at the Shimlapuri police station after Surinderpal Sharma, an advocate, complained that he had extorted ₹50,000 from his client Suresh Kumar, said Jaskiranjit Singh Teja, additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP, city 2).

Mishra is president of a labour welfare organisation. He had allegedly assured Kumar that he would help him get his sister Pooja’s in-laws arrested after she lodged an FIR against them for aborting her pregnancy on April 7, 2019, at the Shimlapuri Police station. Mishra had taken ₹50,000 from Kumar to get a chargesheet filed against them.

Teja said investigations had also revealed that Mishra had taken ₹2lakh from Jatinder Kumar for police protection to carry out sand mining and ₹70,000 from Sandeep Sharma for illegal lottery trade.

Inspector Amandeep Singh Brar, SHO at Shimlapuri police said a case under sections 384 (extortion), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC has been registered against the accused.

Investigations are continuing to ascertain if he had extorted money from others.