Liquor contractor gets Rs 5-crore ransom call

A liquor contractor, who has businesses in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, filed a complaint with the Una police last evening stating that he had received a ransom call for Rs 5 crore and a threat of facing dire consequences if I did not pay the amount.

In the complaint, Rajiv Rana said that he received a WhatsApp call on Tuesday evening and the caller identified himself as Hari Boxer, brother of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. He added that the caller demanded Rs 5 crore by late evening and threatened that he and his family members would face serious consequences if did not pay the ransom money.

Rana said that he told the caller that he was not in a position to pay even Rs 5,000, leave alone Rs 5 crore. Later, Rana informed the police and also met the Superintendent of Police.

Additional SP Sanjeev Bhatia said that a case had been registered at the Una Sadar police station and keeping in view the seriousness of the matter, an investigation had been initiated. He added that efforts were being made to trace the location of the caller.

In the past few months, there had been a number of incidents of phone caller demanding ransom from businessmen in Una district. Some time ago, the Punjab Police had arrested two shooters of a gang in the Raipur Rasoolpur area of Jalandhar district, who admitted to having taken a ‘supari’ to murder an Una businessman who did not pay ransom money. On their disclosure, the police also recovered an illegal weapon from a village in Una.