3 held for extortion bid

Bhubaneswar: Three persons were arrested Tuesday on charges of an extortion bid on a private firm employee. Laxmisagar police said they have arrested Santosh Rout (22) of Laxmisagar, Ashok Das (41) of Fishery Lane and Santu Behera (25) of Buddha Nagar on charges of threatening and demanding Rs 1 lakh from Kushal Pal Singh, who works as project manager of an Ahmedabad-based private company. The company was awarded the work order for sewage chamber construction in Chintamaniswar area here. The trio had demanded Rs 1 lakh from Singh April 29. When Singh denied, they threatened to eliminate him and made away with vibrator equipment from the construction site, Laxmisagar inspector in-charge Dayanidhi Nayak said. “On the basis of Singh’s complaint, we have registered a case (109/18) and arrested the trio,” Nayak said, adding the stolen equipment, a motorcycle and two cell phones have been recovered from them.