Bhawanipatna: Local police Thursday arrested three persons who were terrorizing locals of Kalahandi district by impersonating as Maoists.
The accused were identified as Parikhita Behera (36) and Bhabani Jani (25) of Gunjiguda village and Premlal Chandi (28) of Rangiguda village under Sadar police limits. Police also seized four mobile handsets, three SIM cards and Rs 10,000 from their possession, Sadar SDPO Biranchi Narayan Dehuri and local IIC Surendra Nath Satpathy told mediapersons.
According to reports, the three had demanded Rs 5 lakh from Arjun Sahoo, a trader of Gobara village under Bhawanipatna police limits. The trio warned Arjun that they would kill his family members if he did not comply with their demands.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that Arjun met Bhawani in a jail when the former was jailed after being convicted in a case. Bhawani came to know at that time that Arjun owned huge amount of wealth. Though Arjun was released from jail after a few days, Bhawani was released in December 15, 2015. He later met Parikhit and Premlal and hatched a plan to extort money from Arjun.
Premlal called Arjun on his mobile April 9 and demanded the amount. The latter received several other similar calls after that. Left with no option, a scared Arjun lodged a complaint with police. Realising the gravity of the matter, Kalahandi SP Brijesh Kumar Roy formed a team under SDPO Biranchinarayan Dehuri to probe the incident.
They managed to nab the accused after tracking the mobile number from which the threat calls were made to Arjun, Dehuri said. PNN
