Journalists arrested under charges of extortion

Two journalists were arrested here for allegedly attempting to extort money from a doctor in north-west Delhi, police said on Thursday.

New Delhi: Two journalists were arrested here for allegedly attempting to extort money from a doctor in north-west Delhi, police said on Thursday.

Dinesh Jain (23) and Praveen Saini (23) were apprehended from Shakurpur yesterday while they were trying to extort money from Dr Shafiq Ahmed, Meenu Choudhury, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-West), said.

Jain works in his father`s newspaper while Saini is associated with the newspaper as well as the NGO run by the Jains. Three persons who are reporters with the newspaper are absconding.

Five persons had last evening approached the doctor posing as an SDM (Anti Corruption Branch) and media and informed him that he cannot run this clinic as he was not having any valid registration or degree.

"They were demanding from Ahmed his registration/degree. Ahmed, being earlier in the MCI, knew that for checking his certificate, one must be from MCI and
local police also accompanies such team. So he got suspicious and asked for their credentials.

"By this time they had already taken photographs of his clinic from different angles and had demanded Rs one lakh from him otherwise they would get the news run on the news channel and thus could get him arrested," Choudhury said. Jain
had allegedly introduced himself as the SDM.

Ahmed did not agree to their demands and they started shouting. In the mean time, some people gathered there and some were telling that these are the same people who had extorted money from them a few days ago.

"While two were arrested, three others Dev, Vaibhav and Anuj managed to escape from the scene," Choudhury said.

Around a month ago, Jain and Saini along with their associates have extorted from three other businessmen.

PTI

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