Police bust extortion module, 4 held

The city police busted an extortion module with the arrest of four persons, including one of them was held following a brief encounter, near the Company Bagh area here on Thursday.

Those arrested were identified as Simaratpal Singh and Amandeep Singh, both residents of Saidoke village in Mehta, Harpreet Singh, alias Happy, of Bhaini Miyan Khan village in Gurdaspur and Simarat Pal Singh of Rampura village. Harpreet was injured in the encounter. Besides, the police have also nominated their Spain-based accomplice Sukhdev Singh, who originally hails from Rampura village and is brother of Simratpal Singh. He was making the extortion calls to a local businessman. They used to identify their potential targets.

They were using the name of notorious gangster Bony Bal for extortion, said Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar.

Sharing details, Bhullar said two of the accused, Simaratpal and Amandeep Singh, had fired several gunshots outside an under-construction banquet hall on the outskirts of the city after which the owner had received an extortion call from a foreign number. They fired at the display board and shot the video and sent to the victim while intimidating him for extortion.

The victim lodged a complaint with the police and a case was registered at the Sadar police station on July 21.

Investigations led the police to Simaratpal and Amandeep Singh who were arrested in the case. Following their interrogation the police identified the remaining two accused Simratpal and Harpreet Singh who had masterminded the extortion along with NRI Sukhdev Singh. Both of them worked as bouncers. They were sharing the details of their targeted victims to Sukhdev Singh who was then making threatening calls to them using the name of notorious gangsters.

Harpreet and Simratpal were held from the Company Bagh area when they were roaming in their car. The Police Commissioner said after the police recovered an illegal pistol from their possession, Harpreet snatched the carbine of a cop. Alerted by this, ASI Balwinder Singh shot at his legs from his service weapon in self-defence. He was later admitted to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital for treatment.

The police registered a fresh case under the Arms Act against them.