Cop among two held over bribery charges

NOIDA: A constable working with the cyber police station was among two people arrested by Noida Police on Sunday for allegedly taking bribes in exchange for dismissal of fraud charges against a finance company.

According to police officials, a Sector 65-based finance company had reached out to people with offers of becoming field officers for providing loan to women if they could bring in clients and take registration fees from them.

The complainant, who was an employee of the company and had raked in ₹60,000 as registration fees collected from 12 women, became suspicious when he didn’t become a field officer.

A police official said that the complainant made a call to the cyber crime investigation team in Lucknow asking for a probe, after which a team from the Noida cyber police station started investigating the matter.

Three men of the company were detained and the cops allegedly asked them for ₹7 lakh in exchange for getting the charges dropped.

They settled at ₹5 lakh, of which ₹2 lakh was given imme

diately. The men were released afterwards.

“But the cops kept asking for ₹3 lakh more and asked them to meet them near the Noida stadium on Sunday with the money,” said the complainant.

On Sunday, a civilian, named Sonu Singh, came to the spot to collect the money. Noida Police, which already had received a tip-off that an exchange of money was going to take place, sent a team from the Sector 12-22 police post to the spot.

Police officials said that Sonu was immediately taken into custody. During questioning, he confessed that his friend, Nitin Chaudhary, a constable with the cyber police station, had asked him to collect the money from

the stadium.

“After this, Chaudhary too was arrested. Four other constables and a sub-inspector from the cyber police station are also a part of the extortion scheme. They will be nabbed soon,” said Harish Chander, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 2.

He added that the initial claims against the company of defrauding people are also being investigated while the role of the complainant is also under probe.

The suspects were booked under sections 342, 386 and 383 of the Indian Penal CODE(IPC) along with relevant sections of the anti-corruption act. They were produced before a magistrate and later sent to jail.