NEW DELHI, August 6: The crime branch of the Delhi police arrested Indu Saini, a reporter of a magazine published from Kanpur and Faridabad, and S.D. Tyagi, general secretary of the All Escorts Union, from Faridabad this evening in connection with a Rs 5-crore extortion case related to the Lakhanis, owners of Lakhani Shoes.Earlier in the day, a crime branch press release claimed that its team had apprehended three persons who allegedly threatened Parmeshwar Dayal Lakhani with kidnapping and murder unless he paid them Rs 5 crore.
The accused are Brij Mohan Sharma, Santosh Sharma and Nafis Siddqui. Siddiqui is the chief editor of Swatantra Media.
On May 3 this year, the body of Mukand Lal Madan, P.D. Lakhani's brother-in-law, was found in Aligarh on May 3 a week after he had been kidnapped.
Swatantra Media, had published a report by Indu Saini some 18 months ago that alleged that one of the Lakhanis had links with fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. This was followed by a two-month strike in the Faridabad unit of Lakhani Shoes led, among others by Tyagi.
A member of the Lakhani family along with the president of the All Escort Union, Bhiram Singh, who were present at the R.K. Puram office of the crime branch and spoke to Express Newsline over the phone, said that the extortion case and the arrests had nothing to do with the strike and the published article.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
