3 men held for extorting workers of residential society in Gurugram
The arrests came after a tip-off received by the Dhanwapur police post on November 8 regarding extortion activities at Sobha Society in Gurugram
Three men were arrested on Saturday for allegedly extorting money from sanitation workers in a residential society in Gurugram, threatening them to pay weekly sums to continue their work, police said. The police also seized a Maruti Brezza car with a masked number plate and three wooden clubs reportedly used by the suspects for intimidation, they said. According to police, officers acted on a tip-off they received about an extortion racket targetting workers at Sobha Society. Some workers were intimidated to pay amounts ranging from ₹500 to ₹5,000, in regular intervals since January 2024, police said.
Assistant commissioner of police (crime) Varun Dahiya said that two of the accused, Neeraj alias Nikhil and Rahul Kumar, have prior convictions for murder and are currently out on bail. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2021 for a 2017 murder case but had been released by the Punjab and Haryana high court on bail in 2023. The third suspect was identified as Sahil Singh, they said, adding that all the accused were residents of Daulatabad village in Gurugram.
The arrests came after a tip-off received by the Dhanwapur police post on November 8 regarding extortion activities at Sobha Society in Gurugram. Acting on the tip, sub-inspector Vinod Kumar, in charge of Dhanwapur Chowki, led a team to the location where they found the suspects loitering near a Maruti Brezza parked with its number plate masked with black tape.
“As soon as the suspects noticed the approaching police team, they tried to flee in the car. However, the police managed to intercept and detain them,” said ACP Dahiya. During a search, officers found three wooden clubs inside the vehicle, allegedly used for intimidation, he added.
At the scene, the president of the society’s resident welfare association (RWA) approached the police and filed a formal complaint, explaining that the suspects had been extorting sanitation workers since January 2024. The group had specifically targeted car-cleaning workers, demanding weekly payments from them, the complaint said. Prior to this complaint, the group’s attempt to extort money from the workers was not reported to the police, officers said.
Following the complaint, a case was registered at Rajendra Park Police Station under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, as the extortion racket at Sobha Society had been going on since January, police said. Investigators later learnt that the vehicle belonged to Neeraj’s uncle. On Sunday, the suspects were presented before a duty magistrate and remanded to police custody for one day.