Noida: Domestic help, four others held for demanding ₹60 lakh extortion

Noida: Police on Saturday evening arrested five suspects of a gang, including a domestic help, in connection with an extortion racket

Noida: Police on Saturday evening arrested five suspects of a gang, including a domestic help, in connection with an extortion racket. The suspects had demanded ₹60 lakh from the president of Bulandshahr Zila Panchayat who presently lives in Noida Sector 50, the police said.

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Kumar Ranvijay Singh, additional deputy commissioner of police, Noida Zone 1, in a press conference, said that on January 20, the gang members had dropped an extortion letter to Chaudhury Omveer Singh’s house seeking the extortion money.

The suspects had identified themselves as members of the Bawana gang and threatened the victim for consequences if the demands were not met, the police said.

Soon, the suspects started making internet calls, to escape surveillance, to the victim. The suspects had also opened one round fire outside the victim’s house to threaten him, the police said. The victim then filed a complaint at Sector 49 police station on Friday, and a case was registered under IPC sections 384 (extortion) and 506 (criminal intimidation), said the addl DCP.

The police arrested the suspects from a rented accommodation in Barola village. The suspects were identified as complainant’s former domestic help Kuldeep Yadav, current domestic help Suresh Sahu, both from Darbhanga in Bihar, and three accomplices Aman Nautiyal from Uttarakhand; Omu Bhadauria from Agra and Vansh Dagar from RK Puram in Delhi.

The addl DCP said that Yadav had left the job in December last year and went to Delhi to run a tiffin service. “In Delhi, he found a Facebook group named Neeraj Bawana gangster fans. In the group, he met three other suspects and planned to extort money from his former employer,” he said.

Yadav told the police that he needed money and hence he hatched a plan for extortion. Police said that Yadav had also roped in the complainant’s present domestic help Sahu in the plot. “Sahu used to leak the movement of his employer to the gang,” the police said.

The police arrested the five persons from Yadav’s rented accommodation in Noida. Police also recovered four mobile phones used in making calls, one countrymade gun and one live cartridge from their possession. The suspects will be produced in court on Sunday, the police said.