Gang of cheats posing as Nepali police busted

new delhi: for two months, lala ram verma thought he was being held prisoner in a police station in nepal on charges of smuggling drugs. his family even paid rs 50 lakh as bribe to the ‘‘police’’ for not pressing charges and releasing him. what verma and his family did not know was that the police station verma was held captive in was a rented house and the men pretending to be police officials were cheats.verma had walked into a carefully crafted trap. and he was not the only one to be duped by the gang. four of the gang’s victims, including verma, lodged complaints with various police stations in northwest delhi. realising that this was no ordinary gang, the investigation was handed over to the district operations cell and a team, headed by inspector sukhwinder singh, asked to look into the matter. weeks of work led the police to prime suspect jai bhagwan and his associates, who were arrested near tis hazari court complex. the police alleged that bhagwan and his accomplices, sanjiv chopra, ranjit chopra, prince chopra and anita chopra, had cheated many people like verma. while bhagwan and ranjit chopra have been arrested, a search is on for the remaining accused. according to the police, the gang used to identify rich merchants living in delhi. a ‘‘chance’’ meeting would be organised between the victim and one of the gang members. he would then tell the victim about his three-star hotel in kathmandu, nepal, and mention there was a lot of money to be made by investing in it. consequently, a trip to the hotel would be organised. police officials claimed the victims were taken to prince hotel in kathmandu, where the accused would pretend as owners. the trap would be sprung on the return journey to india. their vehicle would be stopped at a ‘‘police check post’’, and a search carried out. this would result in the recovery of large amounts of a white powder, which ‘‘police officials’’ would claim was smack. the entire party would then be arrested and taken to a police station. in the meantime, one of the gang members would contact the victim’s family and inform them about the arrest. the only way out, the family would be told, was bribing the nepali police. the gang member would also mention that there was talk of setting up an ‘‘encounter’’ if the family did not pay up. this was sufficient to convince most victims about the gravity of the situation and they would pay up. officials claimed that apart from verma, there were three other victims who had approached delhi police. they were rajbir singh, kishan lal prewa and kishan lal batra. the gang allegedly collected over rs 1.2 crore from their victims. the gang was able to evoke such fear that some of them even sold their property, houses and jewellery to pay the bribe.