History-sheeter demands 11cr from bizman, held

Vadodara: A criminal who tried to dupe posing as sharp-shooter Anil alias Anthony got caught on Friday. On basis of a tip-off, detection of crime branch (DCB) nabbed accused Ravi Devjani from Warasia after he had demanded Rs 11 crore from a sari showroom owner in the city five days ago.
The police said that Devjani is a notorious criminal who has 15 offences including that of extortion filed against him in different police stations of the city.
On July 11, the accused had called up Manoj Sadhnani, owner of a well-known sari shop in the city and demanded Rs 11 crore from him. Devjani posing as Anthony, even threatened Sadhnani of getting shot if he failed to pay up.
Devjani told the complainant that he wanted the money to handle the cases filed against him and his wife who was in the police custody. He also said that he wanted the money to escape from the country.
Sadhnani pleaded that he didn’t have that much money, but Devjani didn’t relent and to frighten the complainant further even said that he had killed gangster Mukesh Harjani in 2013.
Devjani then made a video-call to the complainant and flashed a gun. “He also threatened to kidnap the complainant’s daughter after which he approached us following which we started tracking the caller. Investigations revealed that the caller was not Anthony but Devjani who too is a criminal,” said D S Chauhan, ACP (crime).
Devjani called Manoj again on July 12 and issued murder threats before settling the extrtion amount to Rs 5 crore. The crime branch traced Devjani’s calls to Madhya Pradesh and found out that the accused was carrying seven to eight SIM cards but kept his cells on the switch off mode. “We got information that he had arrived in the Warasia area following which we nabbed him,” Chauhan told TOI.