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.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Mohali, Vivek Sheel Soni, on Tuesday ordered registration of an FIR against Sub-Inspector (S-I) Balwinder Singh in the firing incident in Dera Bassi in Punjab. The SSP also initiated departmental action against three police personnel present at the spot for major punishment.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday informed the Assembly that the state will soon bring a resolution in the House to oppose the Centre's Agnipath scheme regarding the defence recruitment. Also, he said, a resolution on condemning the ban on Sidhu Moosewala's new song, SYL, on YouTube.
The Special Cell sought fourteen days police custody. The police move was opposed by advocate Deepak Tyagi who appeared for Kumar. The court after hearing the arguments allowed the police request and sent him to police custody.
In a statement released here, Sirsa said he had claimed from day one that the excise policy of Delhi and now of Punjab has been framed to benefit large contractors from whom the AAP wanted to get election funds to contest elections in time to come in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.
Some of the accused arrested by the Punjab Police have revealed the name of Lawrence Bishnoi as the main culprit who hired them to execute the killing of Moosewala.
In the next five years, the Bhagwant Mann-led government, which is silent on its crucial poll promise of Rs 1,000 allowance for each woman over 18 years, will set up 16 medical colleges. With this, the total number of medical colleges will rise to 25.
