Sonia Dhawan has been sent to judicial custody (Express Photo/Gajendra Yadav)
With three people, including a vice-president with Paytm, being sent to judicial custody in an alleged extortion case, police said they are now trying to verify claims by the accused’s family that they were blackmailed.
Police have identified the three arrested accused as Sonia Dhawan, who started as the firm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s secretary and is currently vice-president, corporate communications/PR; her husband Rupak Jain, a property dealer; and Devendra Kumar, an employee with Paytm’s administration department.
A fourth accused, who is believed to have made extortion calls to Vijay and his brother Ajay, is on the run, police said.
According to the complaint filed by Rupak Jain, he received a call on September 22 in which an unknown person threatened to kill his wife Sonia and his mother and children. The caller also demanded Rs 5 crore, he claimed.
Station House Officer of Sector 20 Manoj Pant said, “We are not ruling out the possibility that the family planted the threat to make it appear that they are at the receiving end. We are investigating the angle that a fake threat was concocted to derail any suspicion that Vijay would have on Sonia or her husband.”
“During investigation, it was discovered that only one call was made to Rupak as a threat. And no other follow up call was made. Through that one single call, we traced the SIM to a daily wage labourer belonging to Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh. However, since SIM cards trade hands a lot, we are yet to establish who actually made the call,” said a police officer from Sector 39 police station.
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According to police, the team from Noida will reach Kolkata by Friday and will begin the hunt for Rohit Chomal, the fourth accused. A senior official with Paytm said the company “supports Sonia unless she is proven guilty. It has come as a shock since she was very diligent and hard-working”.
On claims made by the family that Sonia was being trapped in a conspiracy, the official said, “This is a confusing time for the family and a lot of claims are being made.”
Meanwhile, the family of the accused has made a Facebook page to gather online support.