PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE /Dehradun
The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) arrested the alleged mastermind of a sextortion racket from Nehru Colony area of Dehradun in a joint operation with Goa police on Sunday. The accused, identified as Salman Khan, had been absconding for the last three years and was wanted in a case registered at Mapusa police station in North Goa, police said.
STF senior superintendent of police Ajai Singh said that the gang targeted wealthy businessmen by trapping them through women and later extorting huge sums of money by threatening to defame them. “The gang members posed as officers of the narcotics bureau and used fake identity cards during the crime,” Singh said.
Investigators said that the gang had allegedly trapped a Mumbai based businessman in Goa. The accused had rented a villa in Mapusa and secretly installed video cameras there. A woman allegedly lured the businessman to the villa, where compromising videos were recorded. Later, other gang members entered the villa pretending to be narcotics officers, assaulted the businessman and extorted a large sum of money from him.
Police said that two accused, including a woman from Delhi and a man from Haridwar were arrested earlier in the case. Several other gang members have also been arrested by Goa police during the investigation.
Khan, a resident of Majra area in Dehradun, was allegedly the mastermind of the racket and had managed to evade arrest for years, police said. “We had received information from Goa police that the mastermind of the racket is in Dehradun. Our teams traced and arrested him and later handed him over to Goa police,” Singh added.
