Hyderabad, July 04: “Bhai ka aadmi baat kar raha hoon. Do karod dene ka, nahi to..” On June 26, when a well-known citybased businessman received a telephone call with this threat, he thought it to be a prank.
But as the frequency of calls increased and with the caller claiming to be part of the “Bhai’s gang from Mumbai”, the businessman realised that the matter was serious and promptly approached the police.
As the investigators began their probe, they initially thought that the caller was having links with the DCompany.
But in the end, the accused turned out to be none other than an employee of the businessman and his childhood friend! Sleuths of North and Central Zone Task Force teams on Friday apprehended two persons Sukanta Bose (the employee) and his associate Kurshid Alam Ansari who were all set to extort Rs 2 crore from the reputed businessman (name withheld). Bose was residing at Lothkunta.
According to Task Force DCP, V B Kamalasan Reddy, Sukanta Bose, who belongs to Kolkata, came to the city about two years ago with his family and was working as a senior sales executive in the company.
As he was not unable to meet his targets in the company and could not get incentives, Bose was feeling insecure about his job and he was facing severe financial problems.
To overcome these financial woes, he hatched a plan and decided to extort money from businessmen in the city. For this purpose, he decided to take the help of his childhood friend, Khurshid who resides in Kolkata.
About a month ago, Bose went on leave on the pretext of his father’s ill health and went to Kolkata. He then met Khurshid who had a criminal background and discussed his plan to which the latter agreed immediately.
Bose returned to the city and rejoined work. Khurshid too came to the city and was put up at a house belonging to a friend of Bose.
Soon, Bose obtained a few passport size photographs, copies of passports and some identity cards and residential proofs and fabricated the same by changing the names and addresses and obtained five prepaid SIM cards from different retailers and purchased an old Nokia handset.
“Both practised intimidating dialogues in north Indian accent by voice modulation to create an impression in the mind of the victim that a Mumbai gang was operating,” the DCP said.
On June 26, they called up this businessman demanding Rs 2 crore and he informed the police.
“We started collecting information about the involvement of the previous extortion gangs. The above gang did not leave any clue and was threatening the victim that his family members would be eliminated if they did not pay the amount,” Kamalasan Reddy said.
After assessing the situation, the Task Force teams laid a trap to nab the extortionist, who had set a deadline to pay the amount by Friday. He asked the victim to bring the amount to Secunderabad railway Station but then changed the venue to Ghatkesar railway Station. “We nabbed them when they arrived at Ghatkesar railway station to collect the amount,” the DCP said adding that three cellphones were seized from the duo.
The DCP has advised the public not to panic on receiving threatening calls and immediately inform the police besides noting down the date, time and the number from which the call is received.
The arrest was made by Inspectors M Srinivas Rao, V Syam Babu and their teams.
-Agencies