Five people including two females posed as reporters of news channels were arrested today for extorting more than Rs. 9 Lac from several people; all of the victims are owners of restaurant and dhaba situated at highways.

The accused Mahaveer Singh Naroka (36), Satish Meena (28), Heeralal (23), Sarita Meena (26) and Mandeep Kaur (26) of Jaipur used to extort money from their victim hotel owners after threatening them for their involvement in stealing fuel from the tankers of Petroleum companies parked outside their restaurants.

9 such incidences at various areas including Abu road, Chittorgarh and Kapasan were accepted of being committed by the gang. Police also recovered a video camera and fake ID of a news channel.

The accused were nabbed by the police from Tidi village, Udaipur while they were extorting money from a hotelier, SP Rajendra Prasad Goyal said.

Prasad further added that the team of cops from Tidi police station led by SHO Jitendra Singh and DySP Ranu Sharma raided the spot upon getting the information about the racket. Seeing the cops the accused tried to escape but were caught and were booked under section 384 and 170 of Indian Penal Code.

During the initial interrogation the accused revealed that they came to Udaipur on 29th September and since then they have recovered an amount of around Rs. 9.38 Lac from various hotels situated on highways till now. Besides that they also targeted the hotels situated at Chittorgarh, Kapan, Abu road and Gujarat highway, SP Goyal said.

It was found that the accused Satish and Mandeep are married to each other whereas Sarita is Satish’s sister. Along with Mahaveer Singh, a cameraman and Heera Lal is alleged reporter of the private channel where Sarita is working as a reporter. Police also found some ID cards from the custody of arrested accused. All accused are all well educated and belong to reputed families.

While informing about the modus operandi , SP said that they used to target those hotels on the highways where they found Petrol Tankers and Trucks parked outside. They started making visuals of the hotel and  on being asked by the restaurant owner, they introduce themselves as reporters and one of the woman became a ration officer, SP added.

According to the SP the accused disclosed the name of some other people who were involved in the racket but their roles will get clear once the investigation will get over. All the arrested accused are still under interrogation and police is hoping to get more vital information about the racket and the crimes committed by them.