Claiming SSP acquaintance, jeweller extorts Rs 29 lakh

PK Jaiswar
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, October 18

The police have arrested a person for allegedly extorting lakhs of rupees from a trader by threatening to get him implicated in a murder case. The prime accused, Sanjiv Kumar Chopra (jeweller), is said to have used the name of SSP (Rural) Parampal Singh to intimidate the victim, Satinder Singh of Darshani Bazaar, Jandiala Guru.

After two months of harassment, Satinder approached the SSP and narrated the ordeal he went through. The SSP formed a team under DSP (Investigations) Gurpartap Singh Sahota and laid a trap. Sanjiv was nabbed in presence of a Tehsildar and a Sub-Divisional Officer, Irrigation Department, shadow witness. The police recovered Rs 1 lakh from the spot.

Satinder Singh said that since the death of his father Niranjan Singh in April this year, he had a property dispute with his brother Kanwaljit Singh. Satinder had given the upper portion of his factory to his nephew Sandeep Singh Bawa, a commission agent. Sandeep had an accountant, Gopi Chand Bedi. Since a repair work was going on in the factory, Bedi used to go there to supervise the renovation work.

On August 3, Bedi came drunk at the site, so Satinder scolded him. Next morning, Bedi died of cardiac arrest. Satinder said Sandeep and Sanjiv took advantage of the situation and started threatening to implicate him in Bedi’s murder. They reportedly demanded Rs 30.5 lakh for settlement. He gave Rs 29.5 lakh to Sanjiv Chopra.

According to Satinder, Sanjiv had a mobile number saved in his phone in the name of SSP (Amritsar Rural) Parampal Singh on which he used to make calls in front of him to prove that the police officer was in the loop. Sanjiv pressurised him to hand over the remaining Rs 1 lakh.

“Perturbed over this, I met SSP Parampal Singh and narrated him the entire incident. After losing my hard-earned money, I was getting sleepless nights,” he said.

A trap was laid and the moment Satinder handed over the money to Sanjiv, the latter was nabbed red-handed. The police have registered a case under Sections 420, 120-B of the IPC and Section 7-A of the Pprevention of Corruption Act against Sanjiv, Sandeep and Jaideep. Jaideep is in Canada.