Punjab Police bust extortion racket linked to gangster Lawrence Bishnoi
Darpan News Desk IANS, 31 May, 2023 12:59 PM
Chandigarh, May 31 (IANS) Punjab Police have busted an extortion racket, backed by gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, with the arrest of its three operatives, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Wednesday.
Those arrested have been identified as Rohit Bharadwaj of Zirkapur and Mohit Bharadwaj and Arjun Thakur, both of Chandigarh.
DGP Yadav said following a detailed investigation and intelligence-gathering in this case, the State Special Operation Cell of Mohali had initiated coordinated action which led to the arrest of these three persons found involved in operating an extortion racket.
Police have also recovered cash amounting to Rs 14.78 lakh from the possession of Rohit Bhardwaj and other incriminating evidence from the mobile phones recovered from accused persons.
Divulging details about modus-operandi, the DGP said the arrested persons were using online gambling platform 'Diamond Exchange' to lure victims by convincing them to join online gaming and betting on a nominal fee to gain great profits.
"After winning some rewards, the victim would start to lose money in betting and then accused persons would offer money on credit starting from lakhs," he said, adding once the victim avail the credit, the accused used to charge hefty interest on the amount, which could sometimes accumulated to crores of rupees.
DGP Yadav said when the victim showed unwillingness to return the money, the offenders would make threatening calls to them through their gangster associates sitting in jails and abroad.
During investigation, the police verified various payment gateways and the bank accounts to which the money was transferred, he said, adding proceedings to freeze the bank accounts linked to the activities of the accused have been initiated.
Investigations are on to identify the owner of the fraudulent website and location from where they are operating them, he added.
The accused were identified as Hardeep Harnal (35), a resident of Mohali, Punjab; Himanshu Verma (27), a resident of Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh; Sharafat Ali (29), a resident of Ambala, Haryana; and Sagar Bagga (30), a resident of Rohini in Delhi.
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NCB Deputy Director General Gyaneshwar Singh said the woman was identified as Syeeda Abida. She had plans to travel from Delhi to Doha by a Qatar Airline flight but was apprehended at IGI Airport on March 10.
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On January 25, the Supreme Court granted interim bail for eight weeks to Ashish Mishra and directed him to leave Uttar Pradesh within one week of his release from jail. A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and J.K. Maheshwari directed the sessions judge dealing with the trial of the case to keep apprising it about the future developments of the trial.
Badal was reacting to media reports, which quoted the Punjabi University Vice-Chancellor as saying that the varsity is facing a "dark future" and demanded that the budgetary grant should be over Rs 300 crore. "The university is already under a debt of Rs 150 crore and is not in a position to pay salaries on time," Vice-Chancellor Professor Arvind has said.
