Parmesh S Jain
The East Division police of Ramamurthynagar police on Wednesday arrested a gang of five including a self styled journalist who along with four home guards was running an extortion racket.
The accused has been identified as,Syed Kaleem,28, resident of RT Nagar,Sampangiram, 31, Asif Babujan, 27, Anand Raj, 30 and Vinayaka, 28,working as Home guards.
Senior officer told media persons,A spa owner approached Ramamurthynagar police station after they got some fishy when the gang of five members posing as cops visited their saloon and took 1.6 lakhs from them as the owner got doubt on them as one of the member of the gang got transferred money through online.
The owner approached Ramamurthynagar police inspector, Melwin Francis,and explained about the incident and stated that they run a spa and saloon situated on Jayanthi Nagar main road a five member gang posing as cops raided his spa accused him of running prostitution racket and extorted Rs 1.6 lakh on Feb 26.
As soon as the complaint was filed inspector Melwin Francis passed information to his senior officers as ACP, Ningappa B Sakkiri,DCP, Bheemashankar S Guled,after seeking a detailed report,a special team was formed under the leadership of ACP Ningappa B Sakkiri team headed by PI, Melwin Francis and his crime team swung into action.
The team visited the spa and after verifying the CCTV footage the team got a vital clues on the gang the team identified four persons as they were working as Home guards.
The team secured all the five member gang and during investigation all the five member confessed the crime.
During the investigation the accused were identified as Syed Kaleem,28,from RT Nagar who claimed to be reporter for “Custom and Excise news” reporter of Newsportal along with Sampangiram,31,Asif Babujan,27,Anand Raj,30 and Vinayaka, 28.
The team recovered Rs.60,000 cash and Rs.1 lakh from the bank account which Kaleem had forced the spa owner to transfer online.
A detailed investigation by the team who grilled the accused and he spilled the beans and it has revealed that the prime accused is Kaleem posing as journalist would visit the spa and small commercial establishments threatened them for being involved in illegal business and extort money after carrying out fake raids with the help of his associates who were working as home guards .
We suspect that the accused might have cheated many people and taken them into custody for further investigations.
Finally Bengaluru Police Commissioner,Kamal Pant has appreciated Addl CP,East,A Subramanyeswara Rao,DCP,East,Dr Bheemashankar S Guled,ACP,Ningappa B Sakkiri, PI,Melwin Francis,PSI,Shivaraj Gharsangi,and crime staff as,Aneesh,Ashwin Kumar,Sunil Kumar,Dilip Kumar,has been appreciated for the exemplary and excellent work done by them in tracking all the five accused and unearthing their Extortion business and landing them in police net a special reward will be given to the team he added.
