Man held for extortion attempt

Officials of the Mumbai police crime branch’s anti-extortion cell (AEC) arrested a 25-year-old man who allegedly posed as a member of the Chhota Shakeel gang and tried to extort '1.5 crore from a Reay Road-based businessman. According to an official from the AEC, the accused, Mazhar Hussain Gulhasan Ansari, presently unemployed, is a former employee of the complainant and had worked for him for five years. The complainant runs a shop selling hardware in wholesale in the Reay Road area of south Mumbai. “The complainant earlier this month started receiving extortion calls from an unknown phone number where the accused Ansari said that he was a Chhota Shakeel aide and threatened to kill him if he did not cough up '1.5 crore,” said API Jaywant Sankpal of the AEC. At first, the complainant thought that someone was playing a prank on him, but when he received repeated calls, he decided to approach the police. Looking at the seriousness of the issue, the anti-extortion cell took up the matter on the instructions of their seniors. “A deal was struck and Ansari was asked to pick up his first installment of '5 lakh. A trap was laid and Ansari was subsequently arrested from Reay Road while collecting the extortion money,” another officer said. In the preliminary inquiry, the accused has confessed to the crime. The officials have also recovered the Sim card and the cell-phone used by Ansari for extorting the money.