Journalist, home guards detained over extortion

NT Correspondent

A journalist and four home guards have been arrested by the police for extorting money from a spa in Ramamurthy Nagar police station limits.

The journalist claims to have been working for a daily national newspaper - Custom and Excise News. Two of the home guards were working at different police stations, while the other two were attached to the state police headquarters.

The accused had fleeced around Rs1.4 lakhs from the spa on February 26th accusing them of running an illegal massage parlour.

The police have identified the journalist as Syed Kaleem, 28, a resident of Kaval Byrasandra, Asif, 27, of RT Nagar, Sampangiram, 31, of DJ Halli, Anand Raj, 30, of Lingarajapuram and Vinayak, 28, of Benson Town. Except for Khaleem, all the others are home guards attached to the Bangalore City Police. “In order to become rich overnight and to lead a lavish lifestyle, the gang hatched a plot to target SPA centres. Kaleem sought assistance from his friend Asif to conduct a ‘raid’ at a SPA. Asif then along with his three other colleagues visited the spa and salon on the Jayanthi Nagar main road on February 26,” an officer said.

The accused displaying their identity cards threatened the owner of running an illegal massage parlour. The home guards claiming to be policemen threatened the victim, saying that they would register a case and Kaleem threatened to report on it.

The accused then made the victim pay them Rs60,000 on the spot. They also took another Rs1 lakh through an online transfer. The victim had filed a complaint with the police on Tuesday.

The police managed to arrest all the five accused persons. The amount which the gang took was kept in the account of Sampangiram.

The police have asked the bank to freeze his account. Further investigations are ongoing.