Two journalists among three booked for extortion

Three persons, two of them local journalists, have been booked for allegedly attempting to extort money from a city-based builder, police said today.
One of the journalists is a reporter with a Marathi daily, while the other once worked as Resident Editor of the same newspaper's city edition. The third person is their aide.
The trio had demanded Rs 5 lakh from one Rajesh Deshmukh, owner of Ajinkya Construction, for not publishing a report against the real estate firm last year, police said.
They warned him of dire consequences if he did not comply with their demand, police said, quoting from the complaint filed by Deshmukh against them on August 24, 2014 at Kotwali Police Station.

The accused were booked yesterday under IPC Sections 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), according to City Kotwali police.
No arrest has been made so far.