Five held for extorting money from senior citizen

Vadodara: Three television journalists among five were held on Tuesday for abduction and trying to extort money from a senior citizen through honey trap.
The five accused identified as Amul alias Hiren Rajeshirke, Eric Saheb, Vijay Thakor, Salim Sheikh and Vruti Rajput were nabbed based on the registration number of the car in which they had kidnapped the elderly man Kiran Gadhvi.
Gadhvi, who lives on Vasna-Bhayli Road, told police that when he was in Ellora Park on Monday morning, Rajput called him. Rajput, who was pretending to be an escort, told Gadhvi that he had found any customer since morning and was in dire need of money. Gadhvi admitted to cops that he got lured by the offer and decided to go with Rajput. Rajput asked Sheikh, who was driving an auto rickshaw, to follow them.
Rajput rode Gadhvi’s scooter towards Yash Complex on Gotri Road and then towards Nilamber Circle. On reaching , he stopped the scooter and started touching Gadhvi inappropriately. Few minutes later a sedan car reached there and three men – Rajeshirke, Saheb and Thakor – came out and started questioning Gadhvi. Rajeshirke identified himself as a sub-inspector from special operations group and asked Rajput and Gadhvi to sit in the car.
They drove towards Akota and Sheikh followed them in the auto-rickshaw. On the way, Rajeshirke demanded Rs 1.2 lakh from Gadhvi and threatened him that if will not shell out the money, he will falsely implicate in a rape case. Gadhvi stated in his complaint that they forcibly took Rs 20,000 from his pocket and thrashed him. As Gadhvi was under fear , he called up his son to bring his debit card near Rockstar Circle on Old Padra Road.
When Gadhvi’s son reached the location, the accused asked Gadhvi to get down from the car and fled away. While they were leaving, Gadhvi noted the car’s registration number and approached Gotri police station.
Police tracked down the car through its registration number and also using the CCTV camera’s footage to arrest them. The accused are being interrogated if they had committed similar crimes in the past and when did they form the gang. The three television journalists told police that they work in a Hindi news channel in Panchmahal.