Dehradun police have arrested four persons on Thursday who had allegedly demanded Rs 50 lakh from a Mehuwala resident and retired teacher Yashpal Singh on January 10. The accused had sent a letter in a closed envelope to him, demanding the amount and threatening him with dire consequences otherwise. The police recovered the threatening letter from their possession.
The accused have been identified as Mehuwala resident Pramod, Musaleem alias Kaka, Mohsin, residents of Pithuwala, Rajkumar, resident of Sahaspur. In his written complaint, Mehuwala resident Mohit kumar stated that his father received a letter demanding Rs 50 lakh from some unidentified criminals. Miscreants had warned his father, stating they would kill his son in case he fails to cough up the said amount by January 12 or if he informs the police about the same.
Taking cognisance of this, a case under section 386 of IPC was registered against unidentified persons in Patelnagar Police Station on Wednesday. Acting on this, SSP had formed a team comprising SOG and personnel from Patelnagar police station. The team has started probing the case. The aggrieved persons received threatening phone calls from mobile numbers 9897536935 and 7500676356. The teams put the mobile phone numbers under surveillance. The criminals had asked the complainant Yashpal Singh to come alone at Badowala bridge near Shimla bypass on January 14 night. Teams observed four persons suspiciously roaming around the said bridge area that night. Police arrested all the four persons after they failed to answer satisfactorily.
During interrogation, the accused admitted to their offences. One of the accused, Pramod said that he, a small contractor, had recently purchased a tractor for Rs six lakh on loan. He is in debt and he is paying Rs 16, 000 per month to the bank. Hard up financially, he along with Musleem, Mohsin and Rajkumar made a plan to extort Rs 50 lakh from Yashpal Singh. Accused Rajkumar had made the threat call to Yashpal Singh over his wife’s phone. “We had reached at Badowala bridge, Shimla bypass to receive the money from Yashpal at the appointed time. later police arrested us,” he added while being grilled.