Kolkata, Sep 30 (IANS) : The Kolkata Police arrested a man on charges of posing as a senior police officer and attempting to extort Rs 5 lakh from a young man by threatening to make his personal information public, an officer said on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Rahul Roy, was arrested following a complaint lodged at Kalighat police station in south Kolkata. Both Roy and the complainant are residents of the Kalighat area and were known to each other, the police said.
According to the police, Roy allegedly introduced himself as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of the state police and showed a fake police identity card to convince people of his credentials. The complainant, who had recently faced some personal problems, shared details of the matter with Roy after trusting him.
The police, quoting the complaint, said that the accused subsequently began blackmailing the complainant. Roy and his associates allegedly demanded Rs 5 lakh, threatening to circulate the confidential information shared by the complainant on social media if he failed to pay the money.
Fearing that the information would be made public, the complainant allegedly paid Rs 10,000 on September 27 and another Rs 2,000 on September 28. However, the demands continued, and he remained under pressure to pay the remaining amount, the police said.
The complainant subsequently became suspicious of the accused and made inquiries about Roy’s identity. He allegedly discovered that Roy was not a police officer and that the identity card he had displayed was fake.
The complainant then approached Kalighat police and lodged a complaint. The police immediately conducted a search and arrested Roy in the early hours of Wednesday.
“A case has been filed against the man under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). He has been arrested. The matter is under investigation,” a senior Kolkata Police officer said.
The police are also investigating how Roy obtained the fake police identity card and whether other people were involved in the alleged extortion attempt. Investigators are examining the role of Roy’s associates and the circumstances in which the fake credentials were prepared.
