Mangaluru: Police invoke KCOCA against four undertrial prisoners over extortion inside prison

Mangaluru: The Mangaluru City Police have invoked sections of Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act (KCOCA) against four undertrial prisoners involved in a case of extortion inside district prison. A case was registered against them in Barke Police Station.

Commissioner of Police Sudheer Kumar Reddy said the police had booked Dhanush Bhandary alias Dhanu, Dilesh Bangera alias Dillu, Loy Vegas alias Loy and Sachin Talapady under Sections 308(4) and 3(5) of BNS for committing extortion inside prison from a fellow prisoner.

They had assaulted an undertrial prisoner and extorted Rs 20,000 from him, which was deposited to the account of the accused by the victim's wife.

The accused already has more than one case under trial in court and the cases attract more than three years of punishment against them which attracts the definitions of organised crime, organised crime syndicate and continuing unlawful activity as defined in KCOCA Act.

The punishment under the act is a minimum of five years which may be extended to life imprisonment. If their act results in the death of any person, punishment is either life imprisonment or death. Any person who is a member of an organised crime is also punishable by atleast five years to life even if there are no previous cases against him, the commissioner added.

Undertrial Mithun lodged in Cell No 5 of Block B in connection with a case registered at Ullal Police Station on April 25, had alleged that four undertrial prisoners had assaulted him on July 9 and demanded Rs 50,000 from Mithun. They also threatened to kill him if he failed to pay and also warned him against reporting the incident to jail staff or officials.

Fearing for his life, Mithun remained silent and later called his wife using the jail phone booth and arranged for Rs 20,000 to be transferred via PhonePe to numbers reportedly belonging to Sachin.

The incident came to light on July 12, when senior police officials visited the prison for inspection. Mithun then provided a written complaint to the Jail Superintendent. Based on the complaint by Jail Superintendent, Barke police had registered cases of extortion against the four undertrial prisoners.