Three arrested for attempted extortion from CMO
12 Aug, 2014A case of extortion has come to light following arrest of a gang of three persons by the Uttar Pradesh Police. The gang had been extorting money from government employees for over fifteen years using a unique modus operandi. Of late, they had been using the Right to Information (RTI) Act to gather information.
Kamlesh Sharma Bhatt of Faizabad was assisted by his two aides Chanchal Bhatt, a tempo driver, and Praveen Singh, a BCom student of Kanpur University in his endeavour. He used to gather information about different government projects and the details of the officials concerned. They used to identify the lacunae in the project after a detailed research and then targeted the concerned officials asking them to pay protection money or face grave consequences. Afraid of the potential complications and fear of the information going public, many officials preferred to pay extortion money to keep the things under wrap. Amongst the officials who fell under his trap were several CMOs, CMS, DSO, excise duty officer, BSA and RTO.
His plan to extract Rs. 25,000/- from Dr RK Singh, CMO (Banda) and backfired as he contacted the police. A police team kept an eye on Dr Singh just as Kamlesh Sharma met him at rendezvous point at Hazratganj with his colleagues. The trio was expecting a bagful of money and was surprised to see the police. The police recovered three directories of UP, MP and Delhi containing numbers of government employees and have registered a case under IPC sections 384 and 392 against them. Further investigation by the police is in progress.