Caught on camera,godman held for extortion

The Pydhonie police arrested a godman on Holi on charges of extortion after the victim recorded the threat in a camera embedded in a pen. One Mohammad Ashfaq Qureshi,a gold-dust contractor,had lodged a complaint that godman Mohammad Gulzar had threatened to kill him either by cursing or stabbing if he did not leave his job. Sheikh then told Qureshi that he must pay him Rs 2 lakh if he wanted to keep his business.

Acting on Qureshi’s complaint,the police set a trap and sent Qureshi with Rs 25,000 in marked notes,to pay Sheikh. However,the clinching evidence in the case was the video clip Qureshi had recorded with a video recording pen. Sheikh was arrested on Wednesday. The police believe that a business rival must have approached Sheikh to threaten the complainant and are investigating into his identity.

“Sheikh is the typical godman. He began threatening Qureshi on February 28,saying that if he didn’t leave his business,he would use black magic to kill him. He said that if he wanted to continue with his business,he should pay him Rs 2 lakh,” said a police officer from Pydhonie police station. “Qureshi agreed to meet Sheikh and recorded his threats on a video recording pen. We asked him to contact Sheikh and pay him so that we could to trap him,” said the officer.