‘Inspired’ by crime serials, three men try to extort Rs 30 lakh from Delhi businessman; held
Police said the men used to call the businessman from Palwal and Faridabad to keep their location a secret. They had procured SIM cards which they used to call the businessman.
delhi Updated: Feb 08, 2019 14:03 ISTThree men, who tried to extort Rs 30 lakh from a businessman in southeast Delhi’s Jaitpur, by threatening to kill his son, landed in the police net Wednesday.
Police said the men used to call the businessman from Palwal and Faridabad to keep their location a secret.
Police said the arrested men learnt this “trick” by watching TV crime serials.
According to the police, one of the accused Ritik Srivastava (19) is the businessman’s neighbour and he knew about his children. Police said Srivastava’s friends Amit Kumar Yadav (23), a tele-caller at a call centre, and Vijendra Singh (22), a class 12 drop-out, had procured SIM cards which they used to call the businessman.
Additional deputy commissioner of police (southeast) Ghanshyam Bansal said the men had initially called the businessman’s wife posing as a LIC agent to collect details about his work timings so that they could trace him. They had got her number from the neighbours, police said.
“On January 30, when the businessman was on his way to work around 11am, two men approached his car on a motorcycle and broke his car window. Before he could call the police, the businessman got a call from an unknown number,” Bansal said.
The additional DCP said the caller demanded Rs 30 lakh from the businessman and threatened to kill his son if he ignored the demand.
“During the probe, we obtained the call records of the number from which the businessman was called. We zeroed in on one number to which a number of calls had been made. The number was traced and it took us to Srivastava’s girlfriend. She gave us his whereabouts and following a search, he was arrested,” the officer said.
Bansal said Srivastava helped police nab his associates Yadav and Singh.
“During interrogation, Srivastava said they collected details about the victim and his family so that they could frighten the man into paying up. They also used several SIM cards and used to call the victim from different locations to keep their location a secret,” the officer said.
First Published: Feb 08, 2019 14:03 IST