Delhi Court grants bail to man accused of running extortion racket from Bhondsi Jail

A Delhi Court on Thursday granted bail to a man accused of running an extortion racket from Bhondsi Jail and of demanding Rs 1 crore from another man.

Additional Sessions Judge Smita Garg granted bail to Sonu alias Akshay asking him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 15000 and a surety of the like amount.

"Investigation qua him is complete. The charge sheet against him has already been filed. No purpose would be served by further detention of the applicant (Sonu alias Akshay)," the Court said.

The accused Sonu was represented by Advocate Ravi Drall.

Delhi Police registered an FIR on 23 June 2020 at the instance of the complainant Sanjay.

As per the FIR, when the complainant, Sanjay, was present at his residence in the village, a man aged between 25-30 years came to his house, handed over a slip to him, and asked him to keep the money ready.

When the said man was about to take out something from his pocket, the complainant got frightened and closed the door of his house. Thereafter, he heard the sound of 4-5 rounds of firings.

After some time, when the complainant opened the door, he saw that 4-5 empty cartridges were lying on the road, and the said man was fleeing from the spot on a motorcycle with his associate.

Thereafter, a call was received from an unknown number on the mobile phone of the brother of the complainant, Praveen, and a demand of Rs 1 crore was made.

The case of the prosecution is that in the slip handed over to the complainant, names of the applicant, Sanjeev alias Bhanja and Bhai Sethi were written.

On June 25, 2020, the applicant, who was in Bhondsi Jail in some other case, was interrogated.

His disclosure statement was recorded wherein he revealed that the incident in question had been committed at his instance by the co-accused Ankit and Ravi and that the call had been made by him to the brother of the complainant, police said.

The recovery of the mobile phone from which the applicant had allegedly made the call has not been effected.

In response to the specific query, the Investigation Officer has stated that the call made to the brother of the complainant was not a video call, but a voice call on WhatsApp and that no response from WhatsApp Inc in respect of the subscriber of the said number has been received till date.

The applicant has been in custody since June 25, 2020.

(ANI)

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