Police nab a four-member inter-state extortion racket

Puri, Jan 19 (UNI) Four members of an inter-district extortion racket were nabbed in a sting operation conducted by the Puri police yesterday.

Puri Superintendent of Police Asit Kumar Panigrahi said here today that some anti-socials demanded a hotelier to pay one lakh extortion money and threatened a construction company to pay five lakh or else to kidnap him.

The construction company ''BE engineers'' was constructing a 15 crore bridge over Bhargavi under the Sadar police limits.

The SP made arrangement with the construction company to trap the culprits. As per the plan a joint operation team comprising personnel from Sadar and the Chandanpur police stations was formed.

Policemen in plain clothes were posted in the construction company camp as workers.

When the four members gang came to take the money, they were nabbed by police, who recovered one revolver with six cartridges, five mobile phones and two motor bikes from their possession.

The inter-state group, the SP said, were involved in a number of cases of dacoity, robbery in petrol pumps and murder cases in various police stations of coastal districts.

The accused were members of a large gang of criminals operating in inter-city crime racket.

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