Vadodara, Aug 11 (IANS) Punjab Police has arrested a man for allegedly making extortion calls to doctors and industrialists in the name of Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar gang, from this district of Gujarat.
The man arrested on Wednesday night, hailed from Bihar and was camping in the Chani area of the Vadodara city for the last 15 days.
According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police from Punjab: "Extornist Sharif, alias Mazaralam Shaikh, had called up an Amritsar-based doctor demanding Rs 5 lakh as ransom. After introducing himself as Vicky Brar and a member of Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar, he had threatened to kill the doctor if the ransom money was not transferred into his account."
The calls were being made from a foreign sim number using a banned app, but with technical surveillance, the police tracked him down to Vadodara. Simultaneously, another team had carried out a search operation in Bihar, from where the police picked up two more accused associated with Sharif.
Police too were surprised to find that the gang was operating 150 bank accounts in Bihar.
According to the Punjab Police records, two doctors had registered an extortion call complaint with the Sardar police station in Amritsar. In the first case, one Dr Rajnish Kumar had received an extortion call demanding Rs 6 lakh on July 29, and the caller had shared his SBI bank account number to transfer money.
The other complaint was filed by Dr Manan Anand alleging that the extortionist had demanded Rs five lakh from a Canada number.
The non-recognition of the Covishield vaccine has impacted the Indians, especially students travelling to the UK. This issue was flagged during the meeting between Indian External Affairs Minister Dr Jaishankar and UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Monday in Washington DC.
She reached Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, by air in the morning from where she headed straight to her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cottage located amid forests of pine and cedar on the suburbs of the Himachal Pradesh capital.
Channi took oath of office along with his two deputies -- one a Jat Sikh and another belonging to the Hindu community -- at a simple ceremony here in the Punjab capital that was delayed for 20 minutes owing to the late arrival of party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Jasbir Singh Virk, president of Bhartiya Sikh Sangthan, has underlined the need to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation and said that there was a need to shore up strength at the Delhi borders.
Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma told IANS that to control infighting in its party state unit, the Congress leadership made Channi ji (Charanjit Singh Channi) the Punjab Chief Minister but insulted the Dalit community by not allowing him to lead the party in the upcoming state Assembly polls.
The government and drug controller's office will have to take a decision on the third booster dose based on data and cases as times goes on and including how effective the vaccine is on the Delta virus variant, he added.
