Delhi lawyer held for extortion

Gurugram, July 21 (Thursday) A lawyer has been arrested in Gurugram for extorting and threatening a man booked under The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act), police said on Friday.

The lawyer Vishnu Dutt practiced in Delhi's Saket courts, police said, adding that sometime back he contacted Vineet Chawla, a resident of upscale Sector 50 in Gurugram who is a suspect in a case under the POCSO Act.

Dutt had been threatening and demanding money from Chawla, who on Thursday registered a case against the lawyer at the Sector 50 police station, police said.

Police are investigating how Dutt, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, got hold of Chawla's phone number and had details about the case Chawla was booked under.

Police PRO Ravinder Kumar said that Chawla, his wife and three others were booked under the POCSO Act last month after their domestic help lodged a complaint with the Sector 50 police station.

Kumar said the Gurugram Police were investigating the case and the Chawla couple had not been arrested yet.

Chawla was meanwhile contacted by Dutt, who assured him that their name would be removed from the FIR. When he didn't pay heed to him, the lawyer threatened him with harsh punishment under the POCSO Act, he said in his complaint.

According to police, Dutt had called Chawla to the MGF Mall here on the Mehrauli-Gurugram (MG) road for a final settlement on Thursday night.

'A police team was following the whole episode and Dutt was arrested red-handed with Rs 2.5 lakh he extorted from Chawla,' Kumar told IANS.

Dutt was on Friday produced before the court of the area magistrate which sent him to one day police remand.

--IANS

pradeep/him/bg