Three held for extortion; Rs 2.5 lakhs seized

​Hyderabad: City police on Thursday arrested three persons on charges of extortion and recovered Rs 2.5 lakh in cash and post dated cheques for Rs 25 lakh.

The arrested persons are identified as Anil Pandya, Roopchand – both residents of Begum Bazar and Digambar of Bahadurpura. Two more accused – Lakshman Rao and Kapil Yadav are at large, police said.

According to the police, the five accused have formed into a gang and had been extorting money from builders by filing cases in the courts on one pretext or the other causing huge loss to the builders by way of dragging the litigation. They used to withdraw cases after extorting money from the builders.

The gang had blackmailed Pranav Developers in the same fashion and extorted Rs 46 lakh in 2015. However, the gang was not content with what it had extorted and demanded more money. Besides, Anil had encroached 40 square yards of land out of the 1210 square yards the firm had originally purchased, police said.

As the ransom demands increased, one of the directors of the firm, Narayanlal Vyas lodged a complaint with the police. Accordingly, police registered a case and arrested three members of the extortion gang and recovered part of the money extorted from the builders.