Three held for Rs 2-cr extortion demand

Three persons were arrested on Thursday for allegedly threatening a businessman and demanding Rs 2 crore from him. Four mobile phones and as many SIM cards, used to make the extortion calls, have been seized.

Police said the accused — Sameer Verma (30), Ajeet Gupta (19) and Hemant (26) — called Vinod Jain, a businessman dealing in garments, on November 25. They reportedly demanded Rs 2 crore from him and threatened to kidnap his children and eliminate his family if he didn’t pay up. Police said Sameer, who supplies fabric to Jain, hatched a conspiracy to extort money from him.

He roped in Ajeet and Hemant and promised them good money.

“Sameer said he had borrowed money from a lot of people and was in debt. So, he planned to extort money from Jain… They then tried to scare Jain by sending a gift pack to his house with a threatening message stating that they would kidnap his children and eliminate them,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Central) Alok Kumar said.