Jagraon, April 26, 2017: The police have busted a gang of blackmailers including its mastermind, an IRB Sub-Inspector posted at Ludhiana and a former Punjab Police official.
The mastermind is still out of the police net whereas five others have been arrested.
SSP Jagraon Surjit Singh said on Wednesday that the IRB Sub-Inspector identified as Manjit Singh had been absent from duty for some time while his accomplice and former Head Constable of Punjab Police was identified as Gurdeep Singh.
Both were helped by one Sandeep Kaur in extorting money from their victims by posing as a news reporter. Investigation revealed that she is a resident of Shimlapuri, Ludhiana though her fake identity card shows her from Baddowal, Ludhiana.
Explaining their modus operandi, the SSP said two girls of the gang identified as Jyoti and Simranjit Kaur used to call and invite them to an appointed place to meet them. When the victim would turn up, Manjit Singh and Gurdeep Singh would appear as police officials and Simranjit Kaur as a fake news reporter.
They would then threaten them to make their rendezvous public and extort money in lieu of sparing them.
The gang would extort between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh from the victims. They had so far trapped and extorted money from 15 victims, added the SSP.
Jagraon SSP Surjit Singh giving details of blackmailers' gang on Wednesday at Jagraon