Egg seller nabbed in Gurugram

LUCKNOW: A 23-year-old Gurugram egg seller was arrested on Tuesday for sending extortion messages to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA Uma Shankar Singh, posing as underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

The MLA had lodged an FIR at the Gomti Nagar police station on August 9, accusing an unidentified person of demanding extortion money of ₹1 crore from him.

SP (north) Vikrant Vir said the accused, Rahul Kumar Gaud of UP’s Mau district, was arrested from Gurugram where he had been running an egg stall for several years.

“Gaud said he zeroed in on Uma Shankar, MLA from Rasra assembly constituency of Ballia, after finding the latter’s contact number and e-mail address from his relatives staying in the same constituency,” he said.

The SP said the accused had no previous crime record and neither did he have any links with any criminal gang.

“The accused confessed to committing the crime when questioned. He stated that he tried the trick, as he was in urgent need of the money to pay back a home loan of ₹ 10 lakh for his family,” said Vir.

The SP said the accused had used a mobile phone number he had procured on a fake identity proof, and believed that the police would not be able to track him.

“Gaud also believed that the MLA would easily pay ₹ 10-15 lakh for his safety. He demanded ₹1 crore thinking that he would lower the extortion amount if any bargaining was done,” said Vir.

The MLA had mentioned in the FIR that he first received a message on August 6, in which the sender asked him to check his mail ID.

He said he found he had received an email, in which ₹1 crore had been demanded. The mail also had a picture of Dawood Ibrahim.

The unknown mobile number, through which the message was sent, was saved as ‘Dawood Ebrahim Tax’ on Truecaller (a cell phone application to identify users of different mobile phone numbers).

Initially, the MLA ignored the message, but decided to approach the police when he received another text on his mobile phone. The second message warned him of “serious consequences” if the amount was not paid.