Six held for extorting money from traders

Responding to the complaints of local traders, LDA officials and Sarojini Nagar police raided the coarse sand market and arrested Ajay Singh, Lallan Tiwari, Pramod Shukla, Jaichand Yadav, Gopal Yadav and Bablu Yadav.

They have been booked onnbsp;charges of extortion and forgery.

The LDA officials, however, denied granting permission to any person to recover the rent of the land or any other tax on their behalf.

LDA Vice-Chairman Mukesh Kumar Meshram said: 8220;The accused claim that they had beennbsp;realisingnbsp;the rentnbsp;and depositing it with the LDA since 2004. But when asked they failed to produce the documents to corroborate their claims.8221;

Thenbsp;LDA checked its own records andnbsp;found that no permission was granted to any person for realizing any money from the traders, said Meshram.

The accused, however, produced some receipts of payments from LDA dated 2007.nbsp;

8220;I suspect that a tax inspector of LDA and some other officialsnbsp;werenbsp;involved.nbsp;An inquiry headed bynbsp;a joint secretary has been ordered,8221; said Meshram.

8220;Ifnbsp;involvement of these employees is found, strict action will be taken against them,8221; he added.

Earlier, LDA officials hadnbsp;received complaints of extortion in Sarojini Nagar. This is the first time thatnbsp;they have takennbsp;any action.