Chandigarh: Haryana police on Sunday claimed to have arrested six persons on the charges of making extortion calls to four legislators of the state last month.
An official spokesperson said that the investigation revealed that the four MLAs who had lodged police complaints, had received death threat and extortion calls from multiple phone numbers tracing to the countries in West Asia between June 24, 2022 and June 28, 2022.
Stating that some former MLAs of Punjab had also received similar threats from these numbers, the spokesperson said that the accused talked in different tones such as Mumbai style and Punjabi.
Subsequently, a special investigation team (SIT) conducted a technical analysis of these mobile numbers and IP addresses. Different teams strategically crafted a plan and accordingly asked the account number and mobile numbers to complete the transaction with the accused and to track these account numbers, two teams conducted raids across Mumbai and Muzaffarpur, Bihar and nabbed the accused.
Police said that the accused were Dulesh Alam, district Betia, Bihar, Badre Alam, district Basti, UP, arrested from Mumbai. Likewise, Amit Yadav, resident of Gopalgunj district, Bihar, Saddiq Anwar, resident of district Motihari, Bihar, Sanoj Kumar, resident of district Mujjafarpur, Bihar and Kash Alam, resident of district Betia, Bihar, were arrested from Mujjafarpur, Bihar.
Police said that so far 55 ATM cards, 24 mobile phones, 56 SIM cards, 22 passbooks and cheque books, Rs 3.97 lakh, a car, have been found in the possession of the accused.
The spokesperson said that it was learnt during interrogation that threats and extortion calls were routed through 10 Pakistan nationals.
The spokesperson clarified that the accused did not belong to any criminal gang or terrorist organisation but were involved in professional fraud, money laundering and have their members across Pakistan, West Asian countries and India. They would make threat calls asking their victims to transfer money to the given account numbers and then either withdraw this money through ATM cards or would transfer this amount to the Indian accounts of their Pakistan based gang members.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
