3 arrested for making IED to terrorise trader and extort money in Gurugram

The prime suspect, who earlier worked as a television repair mechanic in Delhi, manufactured the IED using a timer device and recorded a video of its detonation

Three suspects were arrested from Shakti Park Colony in Sector 10A on Thursday night for allegedly making an improvised explosive device (IED) and sending its detonation video to a wholesale trader in Khandsa Mandi to allegedly terrorise and extort money from him, police said on Friday.

The three accused men in police custody on Friday. (ANI)

Police said the trader opened his shop on the morning of October 21 to find a letter, with a memory card pasted on it, slipped through the shutter. The letter demanded that he pay ₹20 lakh in the form of gold. Investigators said the motive behind asking for gold was that the precious metal would be easier for the suspects to carry and convert to currency.

According to police, the prime suspect, Rajinder Singh (45), who earlier worked as a television repair mechanic in Delhi, manufactured the IED using a timer device (alarm clock) and recorded the video of its detonation.

They said Singh saved his video on the memory card and slipped it attached to the letter inside the shop to threaten the trader that he and his entire family will be blown up if he failed to pay up.

“The suspects had asked the trader to drop money near Nasibpur exit on Agra-Yamuna Expressway. The trader sent his brother there after arranging ₹2 lakh in a bag who left it beneath a roadside tree on the expressway on the night of October 22. Later, Singh’s nephew Hazari Prasad (24) picked it up and fled,” Varun Kumar Dahiya, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said.

Singh and his associates Prasad and Sanjay Kumar (28) were arrested and at least two to three more associates are yet to be nabbed, said police.

Police said Singh and Kumar are presently working as quality check workers at an export firm in Sector 37. They said Singh and Prasad hail from Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh while Kumar hails from Madhubani in Bihar

Dahiya said the suspects rang the trader again on October 23 but he didn’t pick up. The next day, he contacted police and an FIR was registered under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code at Shivaji Nagar police station.

Investigators said Singh was hatching this plan to extort money from the trader for almost 8-10 months and had tested the IED three to four times previously before finally making a video of its detonation and sending it to the trader.

Police said he picked the trader as a target as he, along with Kumar, used to purchase groceries from the trader and knew that he earned hefty sums from daily sales.

According to police, Singh procured a few SIM cards using forged ID cards to make the extortion calls and had downloaded arson videos from the internet, which he saved on the memory card along with the IED detonation video to terrorise the trader.