In a shocking case, a 24-year-old young man was arrested on charges of attempting to dupe his father by posing as a fake Maoist and demanding Rs 35 lakh as extortion in Odisha's Kalahandi district, police said.
The man was identified as Ankush Agarwal, son of Dinesh Agarwal who is a well-known contractor in the area. He was arrested over a week after his father filed a complaint with the police.
The incident was reported from Rupra Road within Narla police limits.
According to the police, Ankush, on October 6, wrote a threatening letter, identifying himself as a Maoist, and left it inside his father's car. In the letter, he demanded Rs 35 lakh and threatened to eliminate his entire family if he failed to give the money.
To build pressure and ensure the plan worked, Ankush sent a similar threat to his father's business partner, the police said. On receiving the letter, the family immediately reported the matter to the police. As the investigation picked up, the police, to their utmost shock, found that it was a hoax threat by none other than the complainant's son.
Bhawanipatna Superintendent of Police Nagaraj Devarakonda told NDTV that the letter seemed to lack authenticity as the names of all the Maoist cadres were spelt wrong. The content of the letter also appeared immature, he said.
The letter was written in Hindi. The contents appeared haphazard and personal references were made to the family, indicating the involvement of someone very close to them, Devarakonda said. "We received a tip-off from a person with whom the boy had shared the plan," he said.
"The accused was working on a contractual basis in some organisation. We arrested him after he confessed to the crime during the course of interrogation," he added.
(With inputs from Dev Kumar)
