4 held for extorting money from Delhi doctors at Bishnoi’s behest

Four people, including the Gram Pradhan of a UP village, have been arrested for running an extortion racket, wherein the accused would target Delhi-based doctors in the name of ‘Lawrence Bishnoi gang’ despite having no connection with the jailed gangster.

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The accused have been identified as Arun Verma, Rishi Sharma, alias Rahul, Gram Pradhan Sabal Singh and Harsh, alias Akhilesh.

Sharing details, DCP (northwest) Bhisham Singh said a complaint was received from the Chief Medical Officer of Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, Delhi, wherein the complainant stated that he had received a letter from the Lawrence Bishnoi Syndicate Group, in which the sender demanded protection money.

Upon receiving the complaint, the police registered a case and began a probe into the matter. The letter even had a bank account number mentioned in it, where the money was supposed to be transferred.

“The thorough analysis of the alleged bank account statement provided crucial insights, allowing the team to identify and examine all bank accounts associated with the mobile phone numbers,” the DCP said.

The alleged bank account was opened in the name of Arun Verma, but the address provided on the account opening form did not exist. Further, technical investigation revealed that Arun Verma was registered with HP Gas cylinder company, and the cylinders used to get delivered to his other address.

The firm’s distributor was contacted, which led to the discovery of Arun Verma’s actual address in Ghaziabad, from where he was nabbed.

Further, it was found that the alleged bank account was used for frequent purchase of liquor from a DTTDC shop located in the east of Delhi, and based on the CCTV analysis, another suspect, Rishi Sharma, was apprehended. Rishi admitted that he, along with his associates Sabal and Harsh, printed the extortion letter and sent it via post to 10 different hospitals in Delhi.

Later, Sabal was apprehended from Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh.

The DCP added that both Sabal and Verma had been working at Rishi’s firm since 2005. However, when it began to incur losses, they got involved in a mobile tower scam, deceiving people starting in 2015. However, nowadays as people are no longer willing to invest money for mobile tower installations, they decided to send extortion letters to doctors, claiming to be associated with the Lawrence Bishnoi Syndicate.

“They fetched a list of ‘All Doctors in Delhi.pdf’ from Google containing details of doctors, hospitals and their mobile numbers. They randomly selected the doctors and sent extortion letters via post from Krishna Nagar Post Office,” he said.