Two held for demanding Rs 35 lakh ransom from MP Aujla

Two persons have been arrested for demanding Rs 35 lakh ransom from a Congress member of Parliament (MP) Gurjit Singh Aujla, police said on Wednesday. Aujla, who won the 2017 by-poll of Amritsar, is contesting the general elections from the Amritsar seat.

The arrested men have been identified as Vijay Sharma aka Bokey and Deepak from Amritsar. With their arrest, the police have also seized a country-made pistol, a mobile phone and a Honda Activa scooter from their possession.

As per the police, the accused had been calling to threaten the MP by dropping the name of a gangster. The police laid a trap and nabbed the accused while they were accepting Rs 10 lakh from the MP’s personal assistant (PA) Manpreet Singh near Government Medical College (GMC) Amritsar.

Addressing a press conference, assistant commissioner of police (ACP investigation) Palwinder Singh said, “We had received a complaint that the accused had been threatening the MP by the name of Shubham – a famous gangster of Amritsar. The accused demanded Rs 35 lakh ransom. A team under the supervision of in-charge of crime investigation agency (CIA) wing of Amritsar, Sukhwinder Singh Randhawa, arrested the accused on Tuesday evening.”

Talking to HT, deputy commissioner of police (DCP-investigation), Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar, said, “During interrogation, the accused told the police that they had made a gang of extorting money from political leaders. They also told the police that Gaurav aka Gora of Amritsar is the kingpin of their gang. Six months ago, Gora was arrested by Rajasthan police for extorting Rs 1 crore from an MLA of Rajasthan.”

He added, “One gang member, from whom the accused procured the pistol, is still absconding. Raids are being conducted to find and arrest the third accused.”

According to a senior Amritsar police officer, who didn’t want to be named, the arrested duo had also been demanding big money from two big names from the Congress party in Punjab for arranging Lok Sabha tickets for them.

First Published: Apr 17, 2019 22:28 IST