Surat: Sarthana police arrested three persons for allegedly posing as Gandhinagar police personnel, abducting three web developers and extorting Rs 4 lakh from them by threatening to implicate them in a criminal case.According to police, six persons allegedly conspired to target the victims and arrived at The Galleria-2 building near Mahavir Chowk in the Sarathana area. They allegedly introduced themselves as police personnel from Gandhinagar and accused the victims of running an illegal business.The accused allegedly threatened to implicate them in a serious criminal case and send them to jail unless they paid Rs 50 lakh. They then forcibly took the three victims one by one including complainant Mihit Desai, Pranav Katba and Milan Sodwadiya away in a white Toyota Innova with ‘Gov of Gujarat’ written on it and extorted Rs 4 lakh before fleeing.Sarthana police inspector DK Patel told TOI : “Following an investigation based on human intelligence and technical surveillance, the Sarathana police arrested three accused and seized an Innova car worth Rs 15 lakh, four mobile phones worth Rs 70,000 and Rs 2 lakh in cash. We have arrested Pratik Hirani, Yash Bariya, Sahel Parmar and Ronakpuri Goswami all residents of Gandhinagar in connection with the crime. Two more accused have been identified and would be arrested soon.”Out of four accused arrested, Pratik Hirani works as journalist in Gandhinagar while Bariya had posed as police inspector. Sarthana police have started investigation to know if the gang was involved in other extortion or not.
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