Three arrested over extortion threats to ministers, MLAs

With the arrest of three persons in Madhepural district, police claimed to have busted a group which was allegedly behind extortion threats to ministers, former ministers and government officials.
Three mobile phones, 17 SIM cards, documents related to numbers of ministers, MLAs and government officials, several voter cards and a list of bank account numbers belonging to different persons were also seized from them.
"We have arrested three persons - Niranjan Kumar Bhagat alias Babloo Master, who is the incharge of a government middle school, his accomplice Asgar Ali and a SIM card seller Santosh Kumar in this connection. All of them are residents of Maghaili Diara village under Alam Nagar police station in Madhepura district," Additional Director General (ADG) (Police Headquarters) Sunil Kumar told reporters.

"They had sent extortion threats via SMS to around 40 persons and had created an environment of fear in various districts over the last few days. They were arrested by police teams comprising of Madhepura SP Ashish Bharti and other officials," Kumar added.
The ADG said the arrested persons have confessed their sending extortion threats to several persons, including ministers and government officials. Further investigation, as well as, interrogation of the accused is going on to ascertain the involvement of others.
Those who received the threats include Backward and Extremely Backward Classes Welfare Department Minister Bima Bharti, former Education Minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha - Secular leader Brishin Patel and MLAs Chandrashekhar (Madhepura), Niraj Kumar Singh 'Babloo' (Chhatapur) and Amla Devi (Triveniganj).

The accused had sent SMSes to the ministers and legislators demanding Rs 10 lakh following which they had lodged FIRs with various police stations in their respective areas. They had also given various bank account numbers in which the money was to be deposited.