Three Sports College passouts held for demanding extortion

LUCKNOW: Three passouts of Guru Govind Singh Sports College of Lucknow, including a national level football player, were arrested from Gosainganj area here on Sunday for allegedly demanding extortion from a UP Rajkiya Nirman Nigam project manager. Police said the arrested youngsters had also planned to attack and kidnap the project manager if he refused to pay the extortion amount.

Superintendent of police (SP) of rural area, Gaurav Grover said the three accused were identified as Vipul Baliyan, 24, Arif Hussain, 18, and Harikesh Thakur, 19. He said all three are pass outs of the sports college and now trying their luck further to get into state as well as national teams. He said Baliyan is a football player and had represented at state level tournaments multiple times while two other youths are cricketers.

“We too were surprised after coming to know about their profile when the trio was arrested while planning to collect extortion amount from the UPRNN project manager Sanjay Kumar Singh,” said Grover and added, “The trio said they planned to extort money as they were going through financial crisis during their stay in Lucknow.”

He said Baliyan has recently completed postgraduate degree in physical education from Lucknow University while two others are pursuing graduation from a city college. He said the trio stays together in a rented house in Chinhat after leaving the sports college campus.

Grover said the trio had made the extortion call to the project manager on Saturday when he was working at his Arjunganj site following which the victim had lodged an FIR under IPC section 386 for demanding extortion with the Gosaiganj police station. He said the trio had threatened the project manager with dire consequences and had planned to collect the extortion amount on Sunday.

The SP said the mastermind of the crime is Vipul Baliyan who is eldest among the three and he zeroed in on the project manager to demand extortion. He said Baliyan did recee of the project manager, managed to get his contact number, collected his personal details and even prepared a video of his car before making him extortion call.

He said the project manager believed that he had got extortion call from some professional criminal gangs when the caller talked about his movement and personal details. He said the project manager approached the police following which the trap was laid to arrest the callers while making them believe that he was ready to pay the extortion amount. He said a country-made firearm, few cartridges and an iron rod has been recovered from them.

THE ARRESTED ACCUSED INCLUDE A NATIONAL LEVEL FOOTBALL PLAYER