Rs 8,000 per month was being fleeced from 1,000 vehicles

Ravinder Saini

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, May 19 

The racket of extorting money from owners or drivers of heavy vehicles carrying construction materials was going on in seven districts of the state for the past over eight months. The racketeers used to extort Rs 8,000 per vehicle for not issuing them challan for overload. The amount was extorted from around 1,000 vehicles every month. 

The disclosure came to the fore during investigation by the district police, said sources. The police have seized laptops and cellphones of the accused to find out the names of the vehicle owners from whom the monthly amount was being collected. 

The police had unearthed the racket yesterday with the arrest of Regional Transport Authority (RTA) Assistant Secretary Manish Madan and clerk Amit Kumar along with two others — Ravinder, alias Kala, of Kharmana village (Jhajjar) and Surender Rathi of Dairy Mohalla here — on the charges of extorting money from the owners or drivers of overloaded heavy vehicles for letting them go unchallaned. A sum of Rs 63 lakh was recovered from them.

“During interrogation, the accused disclosed they were extorting money from owners of around 1,000 heavy vehicles. The racket was being run systematically. They had prepared a record with details of vehicle owners, drivers and registration number of the vehicles to collect Rs 8,000 per vehicle monthly from them,” DSP Narendra Kadian told The Tribune.

Kadian maintained that some record pertaining to the racket had been recovered while laptops and mobile phones of the accused had been sent to the cyber cell for getting more information. “The involvement of other persons cannot be ruled in the racket, hence the case is being probed from every angle,” he added. 

The sources said the accused Ravinder and Surender collected the money from the vehicles. They used to give Rs 7,200 per vehicle to the RTA employees and keep Rs 800 with them. Their network was spread in Charkhi Dadri, Mahendragarh, Jhajjar, Rewari, Bhiwani and Sonepat. The vehicles 

carried construction material from Mahendragarh and Bhiwani districts. 

“The vehicles owners providing money to the racketeers will also come under lens. Some more employees of the RTA are also on the police radar,” the sources maintained.