6 held for bid to kill construction firm owner over extortion in Gurugram

Debashish Karmakar

letters@hindustantimes.com

GurugramSix suspects including a gangster were arrested from Nakhrola near Sector 81 with a large cache of arms and ammunition after they allegedly demanded several crore rupees as extortion money from a construction firm and planned to eliminate its owner, police said on Thursday.

The arrested suspects were identified as gangster Dheeraj Nakhrola, 40, and his henchmen Samundra Deshwal alias Rathi, 21, Sagar Kumar, 20, of Panipat, Manish Kumar, 23, and Vikas Kumar of Jhajjar and Anuj Kumar, 24, of Dharampur in Gurugram.

They said the arrest took place from a real estate firm office run by the gangster. Investigators said Nakhrola heads the gang of slain gangster Ashok Rathi.

Investigators said that four pistols, five magazines, a revolver and 35 live cartridges were recovered from their possession during the raid.

Varun Kumar Dahiya, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said that they were all set to either eliminate the construction firm owner from which they had demanded extortion money to establish their supremacy or abduct executives and loot cash from the site in Sector 80.

“The abductions were planned as the firm had not paid the extortion money,” he said.

Investigators said that two suspects in a black SUV reached the site on October 5 and threatened the officials and the contractors of the earth moving firm, working for a well-known real estate firm, either to pay extortion money or face dire consequences.

They said that the suspects had threatened them with the option that either they stop the construction completely or get it done through them in case they don’t pay the extortion money but nothing such happened which had irked the gangster.

The firm’s executives had initially kept the matter hidden but on Tuesday, the firm owner approached police and submitted a written complaint at Kherki Daula police station for registering an FIR after which teams were formed to nab the suspects.

They said eight criminal cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, kidnapping for ransom were registered against Dheeraj, Vikash and Anuj have one, Sagar had five, and Samunder and Manish have three criminal cases each registered against them. Officials said all six suspects were produced before court and taken on police remand for detailed interrogation. According to police, the gang was presently active only in Gurugram but was planning to extend soon.