Anti-extortion Cell officials of the Mumbai Crime Branch have arrested a 30-year-old man from New Delhi in connection with a complaint filed by a Khar-based businesswoman, who claimed that she got an extortion call for Rs 1 crore
Anti-extortion Cell officials of the Mumbai Crime Branch have arrested a 30-year-old man from New Delhi in connection with a complaint filed by a Khar-based businesswoman, who claimed that she got an extortion call for Rs 1 crore from a person claiming to have links to gangsters Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel and Fahim Machmach.
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The arrested accused has been identified as Harishkumar Yadav, 30, a resident of Nagloi, New Delhi. The Khar police had registered a first information report on November 30 and later the case was handed over to the Crime Branch. The complainant, Shabnam Shaikh, has a garment business and an NGO, Help Care Foundation. In October 2017 she had filed a case against a caller who identified himself as the bodyguard of a Bollywood actor, for allegedly abusing her on the phone.
Shaikh said the man abused her because she had helped Big Boss contestant Zubair Khan, who had a tiff with the actor. Later she claimed she found that Zubair was lying. When she confronted Zubair about this, he alleged that she had taken huge sums of money from the channel airing the reality show. He allegedly also defamed her by uploading a recording of this conversation on Facebook.
Shaikh, in the FIR at Khar police station, claimed that after this episode she got a call from Karachi and the caller identified himself as Usman Choudhari and demanded Rs 1 crore on behalf of Chhota Shakeel, Dawood Ibrahim, and Fahim Machmach. If she did not pay, the caller allegedly threatened to kill her.
"Tracing the numbers used, we caught a person from New Delhi," said a Crime Branch officer. Yadav's role in the crime is being ascertained. Investigators feel Yadav's background and his activities suggest his affiliations are with the Fahim Machmach gang. Yadav has been charged with section 387 (putting person in fear of death or of grievous hurt) of Indian Penal Code, a source said.
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