2 held for extortion bid

The HAL police have arrested two persons trying to extort Rs 50 lakh from an engineering graduate.

Ramakrishna alias Kitty, 32, a resident of Rajajinagar and Srikanth, 27, a resident of 4th block Jayanagar and also a co-artiste in Kannada movies, are the arrested. Two other suspects, Chetan Kumar and Vishwas, are absconding.

In the beginning, the accused befriended Pradip and Harshavardhan, studying Civil Engineering in SEA college in KR Puram. Chetan Kumar told Pradip that he was a film director and would help him bag roles in movies. He also offered him a hero’s role in a documentary film they were planning to produce.

They invited Chetan to a lodge in Nelamangala and when he went there, the accused locked him up in a room. They forcefully made him say that if anyone paid him money, he would get them a job in HAL as his father was an HAL employee. They recorded the statement on mobile phone and started harassing him for money, said the police.

“They asked him to pay Rs 50 lakh failing which they threatened to leak the video to the media and tell everyone that he was cheating students by promising them jobs in HAL,” a police officer said.

Pradip’s parents lodged a complaint with the police. After carrying out a thorough investigation, the police arrested Ramakrishna and Srikanth and are searching for the other two.

Held for setting bikes on fire

The police have arrested two men who allegedly set ablaze 11 bikes parked in front of a few houses at Annasandrapalya on November 11.

The arrested are Tufail Pasha, 20, and Nayeem, 23, both residents of Islampura.
The duo told the police that they set the bikes on fire after Nagaraj and Naveen Kumar objected to their sniffing adhesives sitting next to their houses. The suspects are habitual offenders and drug addicts. They used to roam around the streets and stole petrol from two-wheelers and used it for sniffing, the HAL police said.