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Promoter of local news portal, two aides held for extortion in Greater Noida

By, Noida
Jan 22, 2025 07:20 AM IST

Suspects were running an extortion racket by threatening people that they would run fake or misleading news about them on their news portal if they refused to meet their demands

The promoter of a local news portal and two of his associates were arrested on Monday afternoon allegedly after a property dealer accused them of trying to extort money from him and threatening to publish fake news about him if he failed to pay up, said senior officers on Tuesday.

In a press release, police said the suspects were part of a gang of gangster Ravi Nagar, a resident of Dadupur village in Greater Noida, currently in prison on allegations of extorting money and material from scrap dealers. (Representational image)
In a press release, police said the suspects were part of a gang of gangster Ravi Nagar, a resident of Dadupur village in Greater Noida, currently in prison on allegations of extorting money and material from scrap dealers. (Representational image)

The suspects have been identified as Pankaj Parashar, who runs the portal, “Tricity Today”, and his associates Avadesh Sisodia and Dev Sharma, all residents of Greater Noida, said police.

“Suspects were running an extortion racket by threatening people that they would run fake or misleading news about them on their news portal if they refused to meet their demands. On November 8, 2024, they called a property dealer, identified as Manoj Kumar, on the pretext of getting his version on some news report that they were preparing,” said Noida police in a statement.

“When Kumar met them to give his comment, they demanded a huge amount from him and threatened to publish fake/misleading news about him if he did not pay up. They also threatened to kill him by sending a shooter,” police said in the statement.

“Initially, they demanded 3 lakh from Kumar, but as they came to know that he approached police against them, they demanded 10 lakh. Kumar paid the extortion money, and we have recovered 6.3 lakh; the rest of the amount was spent by them,” said a senior police officer, who is part of the investigation, asking not to be named.

Following the complaint by Kumar, a case under section 308(5) (extortion) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was filed at the Beta-2 police station on Monday, and they were arrested.

In a press release, police said the suspects were part of a gang of gangster Ravi Nagar, aka Ravi Kana, aka Ravindra Singh, a resident of Dadupur village in Greater Noida, who is currently in prison on allegations of extorting money and material from scrap dealers after threatening them with dire consequences.

“They (suspects) are part of the Ravi Kana gang, but after he was imprisoned, they were running the gang and was extorting money by using Kana’s name and posing as his associates,” said the police statement.

“During interrogation, it was revealed that 15 to 20 suspicious bank accounts are associated with them and their accomplices. These bank accounts are being used for illegal money transactions of the Ravi Kana gang. Evidence of phone conversations with Kana was also found and it came to the fore that they were using Kana’s money in the news portal business,” police statement said.

“We are scanning how much money is deposited in all these bank accounts,” said the officer quoted above.

Police said they have recovered 6,30,000 cash, Maruti Celerio car, Tata Safari SUV, 14 registration certificates (RC) of cars attached to Ravi Kana gang, and documents from their possession. They were all sent to jail after they were produced before court on Tuesday afternoon, said police.

Notably, Noida police started an investigation against Ravi Kana after a 25-year-old woman approached police on December 30, 2023, and filed a complaint alleging that he, along with his three accomplices, gang-raped her at a surface parking lot of a mall in Noida Sector 38A.

Later, another case was registered against him for coercing industrialists to get the tender of the rebar scrap deal. Kana, along with his wife, was arrested from Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on April 26, 2024, after they were deported by Interpol from Bangkok, Thailand on April 24.

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