Extortion calls: Everyone's Lawrence Bishnoi here

GURUGRAM: Claiming to be notorious gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, a man on Tuesday demanded Rs 5 crore from a city-based businessman and threatened that he will kill the 42-year-old factory owner if the amount was not paid up.

After the audio message and the WhatsApp call around 1.30pm, the businessman reached out to the police who began the probe.
They found that the caller was 28-year-old Akash, who belonged to Muzaffarnagar (UP) and had lost his job at a different factory six months back.
Akash’s wife worked as a helper at the businessman’s factory in the city until last month and that’s how the two of them managed to glean information about the owner. He was arrested from the Basai Chowk on Wednesday.
During interrogation, Akash told the cops he had heard a lot about Lawrence Bishnoi over the last few weeks, and decided to use the gangster’s name to make the extortion call. Bishnoi, currently in Punjab Police’s custody, is believed to be the “key conspirator” in the killing of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala last month.
“Akash, who has no criminal history, thought he would successfully commit the crime in Bishnoi’s name,” said ACP (crime), Preet Pal Sangwan.
Since the singer’s killing, allegedly by Bishnoi’s associates, a trend is emerging of petty criminals or those with an axe to grind using the gangster’s name to drive fear into their targets.
On June 8, a former student who wanted to settle a score for not clearing the Class 10 exam threatened his school’s principal by identifying himself as a member of Bishnoi’s gang, in Farrukhnagar.
On Tuesday’s threat, police said Akash was planning to attack the businessman if he refused to pay up. “We learned that his friend had arranged a pistol. We are still investigating to see if more people were involved,” ACP Sangwan said.Akash was booked under IPC sections 387 (extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation), and the Arms Act.
2 men posed as Bishnoi gang members, arrested in Delhi
Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit arrested two men who posed as members of the Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar gang for allegedly making extortion calls to a businessman in Ludhiana. The police said the accused also threatened the victims citing Punjabi singer-turned-politician Sidhu Moose Wala’s death.
The two accused were identified as Shakti Singh (29) and Afzal Khan (24), both natives of Bilaspur in Chattisgarh.
Deputy commissioner of police (IFSO) KPS Malhotra said, on June 12, Ludhiana’s cyber police station contacted the IFSO unit and sought help in tracing the accused. “The case was registered on the complaint of a Ludhiana-based businessman who alleged that he was receiving threat calls from some unknown international and Indian phone numbers,” the officer said.
The callers were threatening him to pay a ransom money of Rs 10 lakh. “They further threatened him that in case of failure of paying ransom money, his fate would be like Moose Wala’s. The accused provided a bank account number too,” the DCP said.
Punjab Police had informed Delhi Police that the location of one of the accused’s phone numbers was in Delhi. A team under the supervision of ACP Raman Lamba was constituted and during the inquiry, the user of the alleged mobile phone number was traced in Gurgaon Sector 22. He was nabbed along with another person.