Parking lot employees at civil hospital overcharge cops, booked for extortion

Among those booked are the parking contractor and his two employees. While one employee was arrested, the other two escaped

A parking contractor and his two employees are facing an extortion case after police caught them fleecing visitors during a sting operation at the civil hospital’s parking lot on Saturday.

Police sting finds parking staff at Ludhiana civil hospital fleecing visitors, 3 booked for extortion

One of the employees, identified as Ashwani Bhagania, was arrested from the spot, while the contractor, Mickey Sahani, and his employee, Gopi, managed to escape.

The raid was conducted following orders of additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP, City 1) Deepak Pareek in the wake of overcharging complaints by visitors to the hospital.

The complainants had also alleged that the parking staff assaulted them when they objected to exorbitant parking fees.

Therefore, the ADCP sent police personnel to the hospital in civil clothes. After they parked a scooter in the parking lot, the staff demanded ₹20 as parking fee instead of the approved ₹5.

When the cops objected to overcharging, the employees hurled abuses at them. This led to the arrest of one of the employees.

He along, with a co-worker and their contractor, were booked under Section 384 (extortion) of the Indian Penal Code at the Division Number 2 police station.

Gurmel Singh, a visitor, said the staff had two types of parking slips, which did not carry the fee rate to pull wool over the visitors’ eyes.