Cops bust extortion racket involved in trapping govt officials

Mandya: The district police on Saturday busted a racket involved in trapping government employees in false bribery allegations and extortion.
According to police, the group was involved in trapping government officials with the help of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths and blackmailing them for money.
The illegal activity came to light when one of the miscreants was arrested in connection with a separate case and his mobile phone was found to contain chilling recordings of the group threatening the officials.
Speaking to TOI, K R Pete tahasildar Shivamurti said he had lodged a complaint with police when he learnt that a gang were conspiring to trap him in a false bribery charges with the help of ACB sleuths. “I was informed by cops that a local goon S M Ravi, who had earlier pressurised me to hand over the land sanctioned to families displaced due to Hemavati dam project, was conspiring to falsely trap me through ACB officers.
“The cops got to know about their plans when they apprehended another Ravi who is a co-conspirator. His mobile phone contained call recordings in which they talked about trapping officials to extort money,” Shivamurti said.
He said kingpin M S Ravi would frequent the taluk office and threaten the officials to get his illegal works done. “He had also lent loans to lower rung staff which in turn made them submissive to him,” he added.
“Ravi’s family had not lost any land to the dam project. But he had created some bogus records, claiming he is among displaced persons and tried to influence me to transfer the land reserved for displaced families to his name. When I rejected his claims, he conspired to frame me in false bribery charges. When I learnt about his plans I filed a case against him and his accomplices,” he said.
During interrogation, a senior police officer said, arrested Ravi spilled the beans over how they had falsely trapped innocent government officials who refused to toe their line. “There are more persons involved in this syndicate and we launch to nab them all including the kingpin, ” the officer said.