Four nabbed for trying to extort ₹20 lakh from doc
NEW DELHI: Four persons were arrested on Thursday in a dramatic police operation for allegedly threatening to kill a doctor and attempting to extort ₹20 lakh from him. The crime was plotted by seven alleged criminals during their stay in a Delhi jail a few months ago, police said .
Police said the four of the alleged accused were caught on Wednesday from outside the doctor’s clinic in northwest Delhi’s Adarsh Nagar where they had assembled in three different groups to collect the extortion amount. Three men managed to flee. One pistol and a revolver were recovered from the men, identified as Nafis, Neeraj, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Kuldeep.
Forty police personnel, including women cops, all in plain clothes, were deployed in various spots near the clinic to nab the extortionists. The police personnel were also divided into five groups and each group was assigned a separate task, said Aslam Khan, deputy commissioner of police (northwest).
DCP Khan said that the extortionists were using snatched mobile phones for making the extortion calls to the doctor. “To avoid police detection, they used to switch off the mobiles soon after making the calls. The criminals were even keeping in touch with each other using snatched phones,” said Khan.
Police were looking for the extortionists since December 24 last year when the doctor lodged had filed a complaint with the police stating that some men were trying to trying to extort him. The doctor in his complaint told police that on December 15, five men on two motorcycles stopped him outside his clinic, threatened him and demanded ₹20 lakh. The suspects threatened to kill him if their demand was not fulfilled.
They started making the extortion calls from December 18 , said police.
Asked why the suspects chose the doctor as their target, an investigator said that a former staff of the doctor, who was part of the conspiracy, had told his accomplices that the doctor was well off and if threatened, he would easily cough up the money.