Gangsters posing as cops extort over Rs 1 Cr from dozen victims
Darpan News Desk IANS, 06 Dec, 2021 01:29 PM
New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) The Delhi Police crime branch have busted a 'sextortion' racket in the national capital, which duped dozens of people and extorted more than Rs one crore from them.
Police officials said that the gang of six members, including two women, began its activities just before the first lockdown in 2020. The main member, the kingpin of the racket, identified as Neeraj of Haryana's Bahadurgarh, was apprehended by the police near PVR Cinema, Sector-14, Prashant Vihar, Rohini.
"The accused used to create a Facebook profile in the name of a girl and sent 'friend requests' to their targets. After confirmation of the request, they chatted with their victims, through Facebook messenger, pretending to be a girl. Once they obtained the mobile phone number of the victim they sent obscene content to lure him," police said, adding that after this the female-member of the gang made a video call to further entice the victim.
The gang used to extract complete details from the target to assess his paying capacity. Once they were convinced about the financial background of the target, the female-member of the gang would invite the victim to a pre-decided place and indulge in a sexual activity. Now hooked, when the victim arrived for the second rendezvous, the other members of the gang barged into the room posing as policemen," the official informed.
The victim was led to believe that the police has raided the place. The gang members then posing as 'policemen' threatened the victim of exposure and extorted money from him. This way the gang committed sextortion from more than a dozen victims in the past one and a half years. They have extorted Rs 5 - 10 lakh from each victim, based on his paying capacity, the police said.
Additional Commissioner of Police, Dheeraj Kumar, said that efforts were being made to trace other victims and to arrest the remaining gang members. "Concerned police station has been informed accordingly. Further investigation is in progress," he said.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday condemned the Congress government in Punjab for allegedly discriminating against teachers and forcing them to come to the streets, and asked state Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla not to behave in an 'arrogant' and 'dictatorial' manner and resolve the grievances of government school teachers immediately.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal on Thursday demanded a high court monitored probe into the manner in which the Congress government in Punjab was playing with the people's lives by creating an artificial shortage of vaccines by selling vaccine doses at a hefty profit to private hospitals.
The electronic conversation took place as US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that India will receive Covid vaccines directly from the US stockpile, the White House said.
The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General M.M. Naravane, reached Kashmir on Wednesday on a two-day visit to review the prevailing security situation in the Union Territory (UT), the army said in a statement.
"There have been several unfounded media reports that have peddled misinformation among the masses regarding this exercise of national importance," a ministry statement said, adding that the total number of Covid vaccine doses administered in the country so far stand at 21,85,46,667.
The Congress said that it was "appropriate for our initial statement to note that the intrusion by Israeli forces into the Holy Al Aqsa mosque during Ramzan prayers had ruptured the delicate peace in the region".
