Jaipur cop arrested for being part of high-profile blackmailing gang

Jaipur: The special operations group (SOG) on Tuesday arrested a head constable of Jaipur police for being part of a high profile blackmailing gang involved in extorting money from prominent city residents including doctors and builders. The gang members used to register bogus rape complaints and then extort money for withdrawing them.

The arrest of Balaram who was earlier deputed at Mahesh Nagar police station has lent credentials to speculations that many policemen of the Jaipur police commissionerate were in connivance with the blackmailing gang busted by the SOG in December last year. Balaram is the second policeman to be arrested in this matter. Earlier a Rajasthan armed constabulary (RAC) jawan was arrested. Many other policemen including two inspectors are under the scanner. One of the inspectors was quizzed by the SOG, but he was let off.

Read Also: SOG arrests NRI woman in blackmailing case, four lawyers debarred

A senior SOG official said that Balaram would be produced in a court and the SOG will try to secure his police remand for further interrogation.

After the gang was busted, some victims came forward and complained to the SOG about the suspected role of two police inspectors.

The agency has arrested 22 members of this gang including lawyers, bogus journalists and women. Many are still absconding The women members of the gang befriended the victims, took them to hotels and then threaten to implicate them in rape cases. Four lawyers were debarred by the Jaipur bar Association.

The police department’s CID-CB branch will join investigation after the name of some police officers came up.

Read Also: Police officers under scanner for suspected connivance with blackmailing gang

The two inspectors were deputed as station house officers (SHOs) at police stations in the city, but the office of police commissioner removed them from duty after their names cropped up in the SOG investigation.

Over the past three years, the women members of the gang registered rape complaints with various police stations in the city including Mahesh Nagar, Sindhi Camp, Shiprapath, Muralipura, Kardhani, Bhankrota and Manak Chowk.

Sources said that the complaints were not turned into FIRs and the victims were pressurized to reach a compromise with the gang. The victims paid hefty amounts of money to the gang fearing social backlash.

The SOG also arrested a 27-year-old NRI woman, Ravneet Kaur from Kota. She was confronted with other members of the gang including Akshat Sharma, Anand Shandilya and Vijay.

Ravneet Kaur came to India in 2008 to stay with her grandmother. She enrolled herself in a college in Jaipur to study BBA where she came in contact with one Rohit who was also studying in the same college.

Kaur dropped out of the college in the second year and started looking for a job when Rohit introduced her to Akshat Sharma alias Sagarpuri.