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.
Despite mobile phones are prohibited inside a meeting room where prisoners meet with the visitors, this incident has brought forth the lapses on the part of the jail administration.
In a bid to highlight the rising air pollution as well as the serious health hazards faced by the people, a group of organisations, think tanks and civil society groups have joined hands to form 'Clean Air Punjab'.
Few hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the flood situation in the state, the latter wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, describing the flood as a ‘man made one', alleging that the "unprecedented release of water from the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) dams Panchet, Maithon and Tenughat" is responsible for the situation.
The incident took place on Sunday night and the victim's family members have alleged that the accused stuffed cloth into the girl's mouth and raped her.
