On 31.01.2023, Vigilance Bureau Punjab arrested a private person *Lal Chand Bansal, r/o Kharar * for extorting money from *Baldev Raj Verma, Municipal Engineer, Patiala, *
who in a complaint to Bureau had alleged that the accused was blackmailing him by threatening to lodge complaint against him to the Bureau. The accused was demanding Rs. 2 crore in lieu of withdrawing the plaint and asking to pay Rs. 50 lakh cash and give property worth Rs. 1.50 crore. The complainant recorded the entire conversation in this regard and promised falsely to pay him token money of Rs. 5 lakh.
The complainant alleged that earlier the accused had lodged two complaints in 2015 and 2017 against him but Vigilance Bureau had filed both of them after an enquiry.
A VB team from its flying squad laid a trap and the accused Lal Chand was arrested near TDI Kharar while accepting Rs. 5 lakh in the presence of two official witnesses. In this regard, a case under Sections 419, 420, 384 of IPC at VB police station, Flying Squad-1, Punjab at SAS Nagar has been registered. Further investigation in this case is under progress.
After arrest of the accused, VB team searched his house and recovered about 70 files, various documents and a cash counting machine besides a laptop which contains soft files regarding complaints lodged against different government officials. He was earlier booked by the police in two different deception cases.
The accused used to file RTI queries and lodge complaints against public servants and later withdrew such applications/plaints by submitting declaration that he didn't want to pursue the enquiry/complaint against the concerned officials. Earlier to this, the accused has submitted a declaration in the Municipal Council, Kharar that he did not want any information under RTI against the complainant Baldev Raj Verma.