2 policemen among four arrested in extortion case

Two police constables, a homeguard and a cab driver were arrested on Tuesday on charges of assault and extortion of Rs  1.35 lakh cash from a spa owner at Banjara Hills.

HYDERABAD: Two police constables, a home guard and a cab driver were arrested on Tuesday on charges of assault and extortion of Rs  1.35 lakh cash from a spa owner at Banjara Hills. The policemen were working in the special party headed by West Zone DCP A Venkateshwarlu, till recently.

The accused were identified as Kateeb Ahmad (57), a home guard attached to Begumpet police station; Bojjagani Venugopal (36), constable working at Chatrinaka police station; Banavath Shashi Kumar (25), a cab driver and Peri Vijay Babu (31), constable working in Langer Houz police station.

“Shashi, while dropping a customer at a spa in Banjara Hills, collected details about finding spas and the activities that take place there. He shared the information with his friend Venugopal, who in turn shared with other accused and hatched a plan to extort money from the spas,” said sources close to the detective department police.  

On February 8, Shashi went to Luxury Family Saloon and Spa located at Road No 10 at Banjara Hills posing as a customer. After entering his details in the spa register, Shashi informed his friend. Within no time, the accused posing as Hyderabad Task Force sleuths, entered the spa.

“They detained the staff including four girls and a manager in one room and called the owner R Raju to the spa. As soon as he went they reportedly beat him up and demanded Rs 3 lakh to not book a case against him. After negotiations, they left with Rs 1.35 lakh cash, and also took away the DVR  containing the footage of the CCTV cameras for escaping the identification,” said the police.

The owner Raju, who has been running the spa with the government license, lodged a complaint with the central crime station police, who registered a case under section 342 (wrongful confinement) and 384 (extortion) of IPC. Based on the Shashi’s mobile number written in the register, the CCS team headed by ACP K Narsing Rao probed the case ad arrested three policemen and their aide Shashi on Tuesday, and recovered Rs  95,000 and DVR from their possession.

It is learnt that the senior police officials on knowing about the registration of a case, have asked them to go back to their respective police stations and dissolved the special party.

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