New Delhi: Four men have been arrested for allegedly extorting money from a person by posing as employees of a power distribution company, police said on Sunday. The accused told the victim that a complaint regarding tampering of electricity meter installed at his house in west Delhi’s Uttam Nagar has been received and extorted money from him, they said. The accused — Rohit (34), Lalit (30), Vinay Kumar (30) and Rahul Attri (27) — told the police during interrogation that they previously worked in BSES, but after losing their jobs due to the COVID-19-induced lockdown, they decided to extort money from people by fraudulent means, they said.
Police have recovered Rs 3,000 along with two gold earing, which the accused had extorted from the resident of Uttam Nagar. The incident took place on September 22. Police said the four accused arrived at Sonu’s house and introduced themselves as BSES employees. They told Sonu that they have a complaint against him for tampering with the electricity meter. Of the four accused, two of them started checking the electric meter and threatened Sonu that if a case police complaint is filed, he will be punished. Then the accused told the victim that if he wanted to avoid all these problems, he would have to pay Rs 7 lakh, a senior police officer said. But when Sonu expressed his inability to pay the amount, they reduced it to Rs 3 lakh, However, the victim insisted that he was unable to pay even that much as he was jobless. Finally the accused agreed that the victim would pay them Rs 30,000-40,000, he said. Police said one of the accused also demanded ornaments of the victim’s mother and took her two gold earrings. The accused then took Sonu to a nearby ATM from where they made him withdraw Rs 25,000. They also took away Rs 6,000 from the victim’s pocket and made him transfer Rs 8,000 via Paytm into the account of one of the accused, the officer said.
Based on Sonu’s statement, a case was registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code at Uttam Nagar police station and during investigation, the driver of the alleged vehicle, which was used to take the victim to the ATM, was traced and apprehended, the officer said. The driver revealed details about Vinay, who had contacted him and hired his vehicle, said Santosh Kumar Meena, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka). The police then apprehended Vinay and subsequently all the remaining accused were also arrested, he said. The police has seized the vehicle used in the offence along with two identity cards of BSES. Efforts are being made to ascertain the involvement of the accused in other criminal cases if any, police added.
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