NEW DELHI: Eight persons have been arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police on charges of robbing a tobacco company owner of lakhs and making extortion calls to him demanding Rs. 2 lakhs a month as protection money. One of the accused was a company employee.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police Ajay Kumar, Vineet Aggarwal, owner of Lal Bihari Tobacco, recently lodged a complaint with the Special Cell alleging that he and his father, Vinod Kumar, were receiving extortion calls and the extortionists had robbed two of their employees of the collection money.

The first incident took place in November last when their employee Naresh Gupta was on his way back to the Bawana office after collecting Rs. 3 lakhs from Nangloi in West Delhi. Four persons on two motorcycles intercepted him, thrashed him with iron rods and took away the cash.

While fleeing, the robbers threatened him not to report the matter to the police. Fearing for his life, Naresh quit the job.

Vineet then employed one Himanshu Sharma to do various jobs related to the business. He would also assist in cash-collection.

In the meantime, Vineet's father started receiving extortion calls, in which the caller asked him to pay Rs. 2 lakhs per month or his money would be stolen again. The father and son did not take the calls seriously. Then on April 13, Himanshu returned claiming that three men on a motorcycle robbed him of the cash he was carrying.

Acting on the complaint, the matter was handed over to a team comprising Inspector Pankaj Sood, under the supervision of Assistant Commissioner of Police Ravi Shankar.

Suspecting an insider's job, the police prepared a list of the company's employees and began checking their antecedents. It came to light that Himanshu and his brother Puneet led a lavish lifestyle.

During interrogation, Himanshu allegedly broke down and confessed to his involvement in the robberies and extortion calls.

He allegedly revealed that he was close to Vineet and worked as a sales distributor for his company. Himanshu along with Puneet and his friend Anand Singh hatched a conspiracy to extort money from Vineet.

They roped in Ravinder, Ashwini Kumar, Yogender, Sandeep Hooda and Vikas. On November 8 last, Ashwini, Yogender and Vikas robbed Naresh of Rs. 3 lakhs, the police said.

A toy gun and eight mobile phones were recovered from them.

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