The Noida police on Wednesday widened its manhunt to nab Rohit Chomal, the fourth accused in the extortion bid on Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
While a police team has been despatched to Kolkata, where Chomal reportedly hails from, raids were conducted on the houses of his relatives living in the National Capital Region. His cell phone number has also been put on surveillance.
While Sonia Dhawan, Mr. Sharma’s secretary-turned-communications head of Paytm, her husband Roopak Jain, and another Paytm employee, Devendra Kumar, were arrested by the Sector 20 police on October 22, Chomal is still on the run.
Dhawan, her husband and Kumar have been lodged at the Luksar jail in Greater Noida. While the couple’s bail plea was rejected by a city court on Tuesday, Dhawan claimed through her lawyer that she is being targeted because of her rapid rise up the Paytm ranks. “The charges against her are false. She is being targeted for her meteoric rise,” said Dhawan’s lawyer Prashant Tripathi.
‘Gathering proof’
Mr. Tripathi said he is gathering more proof of the couple’s innocence before applying for bail in the sessions court. “We will apply once we have all the required documents,” he said.
On Wednesday, Dhawan and Jain’s family, including her sister, went to meet the jailed couple.
The relatives first met Jain around noon and then his wife for 10 minutes.
“All Sonia could do was express shock before she broke down,” said her sister.
Dhawan told the family that she had no idea she was being arrested. “She was asked by Ajay [Shekhar Sharma, senior vice president at Paytm and the founder’s brother] to join him for a meeting. After they got into the car, they directly took her to the Sector 20 police station where she was told she is being arrested. Roopak was taken from home. The cops dragged him away,” said Dhawan’s sister.