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Man impersonating as cop to extort money from commuters held in Batala
Police on Tuesday arrested a man who had been extorting money from commuters by impersonating as a police officer.
BATALA Police on Tuesday arrested a man who had been extorting money from commuters by impersonating as a police officer. The arrested man has been identified as Jagdeep Singh alias Jagna of Dhariwal. With the arrest of the accused, the police have also recovered 70 grams of heroin from his possession.
Police said the accused had been extorting money from the commuters by threatening them to lodge cases against them for breaking police barricading. He allegedly used to stand and intercept commuters one or two kilometres ahead of the police nakas in Batala.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP-Batala) Satinder Singh said they had received several complaints from the locals about the accused. “We issued instructions to our all naka parties to stay alert about the accused. After our continuous efforts, the accused was arrested,” he said.
“The accused had been extracting money from the commuters by threatening them to lodge cases and impound their vehicles for not stopping at police barricades. On December 25, the accused had forcibly extracted ₹ 4500 from a person who was travelling on a scooter,” said superintendent of police Gurmeet Singh.
He said they have also identified three more accomplices of the arrested man as Dhillon, Akasi and Lucky. “Our raids are on to nab them,” he said.
He further said that so far they have found that the accused had extorted money from six persons in the recent past. “These six are those cases in which the victims had lodged their complaints. Our questioning is on to ascertain the exact number of victims from whom the money was extorted by the accused,” he said. Sources said the accused was a drug addict and had been committing the crime to fulfil his need for drugs. The accused have been booked under Section 379-B (theft by force) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 25-54-59 of the NDPS Act at the Batala City police station.
