Tinsukia: The Digboi Police arrested a journalist and two other persons on extortion charges in the name of fake caste certificates from Assam’s Tinsukia district.
The accused have been identified as Monuranjan Das, a journalist with a regional media house and former secretary of the Tinsukia District Journalist Association; Manoj Kr. Das and Apurva Hazarika who are allegedly vice president and secretary respectively of Scheduled Caste Jatya Sangram Yuva Parishad.
Superintendent of Tinsukia police Abhijit Gurav said that based on a complaint from a retired employee of Indian Oil Corporation Limited, police registered a case and arrested the trio.
“The complainant, in his FIR dated March 6, said that on May 31 last year, the accused persons, namely Manoj Kr. Das, Monuranjan Das along with three accomplices visited his house identifying themselves as a part of an investigation group from Guwahati, and demanded his service record,” Gurav said, adding, “They allegedly verified all his service records, including SC caste certificate.”
Gurav added that the accused told him that his certificate is fake. Then, he threatened him with dire consequences and demanded a huge amount of money. “Later on, the complainant was forced to sign four different cheques of Rs 25,00,000 (combined) which was allegedly withdrawn by the accused,” said.
“In the past eight months, the group has already extorted an amount of Rs 41.50 lakh from the complaint. This time when they again blackmailed and pressured the complainant for an additional amount of Rs 1,50,000, the complainant knocked on the door of the police,” said Gurav.
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Police had registered a case under section 120 (B) / 386 of the Indian Penal Code.
Talking to this correspondent, the officer-in-charge of Digboi police station D J Dutta said as the investigation is underway, they are in the process of freezing the bank accounts of the accused and also recovering the extorted money.
According to preliminary investigations, it has come to light that the racket has blackmailed people across the state, and some in Shillong. However, we are yet to receive any additional complaints so far.
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