Nagpur: The Cyber Police of Nagpur have unearthed a major extortion racket where the four accused allegedly threatened and blackmailed an industrialist in the city and demanded extortion of 1 crore in the name of Union Coal Minister. The four accused threatened the coal trader to defame him through the newspapers, media reports said.
In this case, the police arrested four people including three fake journalists from Nagpur. The accused have been identified as Piyush Purohit, Rashtrabhan Portal journalist Sanjay Baghel, Sanjeet Baghel and Vansh Agarwal alias Mayank Kumar. The court has ordered to keep them in police custody for four days.
The four arrested persons included one from Bangalore, who impersonated as an officer On Special Duty (OSD) to Union Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi. The accused demanded Rs 1 crore as ransom from the resident of Civil Lines who deals in coal. Those arrested included journalist Piyush Purohit (30), Editor Sanjay Baghel (30) and Executive Editor Sanjheet Baghel from Seoni in Madhya Pradesh and Mayank Kumar from Bangalore, who introduced himself as the OSD.
According to the police, the four so-called journalists Piyush Purohit, Vansh Agarwal, Sanjeet Baghel and Sanjit Baghel of the portal Rashtrabhan.in in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, were demanding a ransom of Rs. 1 crore from the coal trader. Both Piyush and Baghel were publishing defamatory stories about the industrialist. Hence the trader dragged the Baghel brothers to the civil court. Both were released by the court on the condition of not publishing any news.
According to media reports, the accused were arrested under sections 294, 385, 387, 389, 419, 420, 468, 471, 506-B read with 34 of IPC and section 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act. The FIR mentioned that the accused had written defamatory articles about the complainant’s coal washing business in October and November last year and also circulated them on social media. The businessman then moved the civil court against the first three accused. The court restrained them from publishing anything against him.
Later, the first accused met the complainant’s nephew and demanded ₹1 crore for not publishing articles. When the businessman’s nephew rejected his demand, the accused allegedly threatened him of falsely implicating him and the complainant under offences of coal black marketing. He also physically assaulted the businessman’s nephew. All three accused continued their demand for the ransom for the last couple of months. The accused also lodged several complaints against the industrialist with the coal ministry and various other government departments.
Kumar then called the complainant under the garb of the Minister’s OSD stating that he had received many complaints against the latter. He used to call the complainant’s nephew from mobile numbers 9997777770 and +44 7387602061. After the industrialist’s nephew told him that they had nothing to hide and they had even filed a case in the court, Kumar told them that he will punish the first three accused. He then sent a letter against the three accused to the complainant on minister Joshi’s letterhead which was addressed to DGP Karnataka Praveen Sood.
He told them that to file a similar complaint in Nagpur against the accused, he would need Rs 10 lakh. He also told the industrialist’s nephew to book a room at a five star hotel for bringing CBI officers to the city to settle complaints. After enquiry, when they came to know that no one by that name operated in the Coal Ministry, the industrialist lodged a complaint with the cyber police alleging harassment and extortion.
