Five arrested for extorting ₹1.36 lakh from Zirakpur builder

Had posed as mining department officials and collected the amount to allow the builder to dump extracted soil from on his project’s vacant land.

Five men have been arrested for extorting ₹1.36 lakh from a Zirakpur builder by posing as mining department officials.

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The accused, identified as Mangu of Patiala, Narinder Singh of Hoshiarpur, and Manoj Kumar and Rajiv Kumar, of Machhli Kalan, Kharar, were arrested on the complaint of Daljit Singh.

A resident of Kishanpura, Dhakoli, Daljit is the director of Royal Estate Group, Zirakpur, which is building a project, Oxford, on the Zirakpur-Ambala road.

Daljit alleged that the five accused had taken ₹1.36 lakh from him to allow him to dump extracted soil on the vacant land of his GMADA-approved project.

Investigators said the accused had been extorting money from private builders using the same modus operandi, as they had the knowhow of mining department’s functioning.

They have been booked under Sections 384 (extortion) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. The accused were produced before a Dera Bassi court and remanded to two-day police custody.