Patna, June 27: In a major breakthrough, the Patna police today claimed to have arrested five people, who had made calls demanding Rs 20 lakh to noted city-based plastic surgeon Ratan Sharma.
Patna senior superintendent of police Alok Kumar said that the five persons have been identified as Sanjay Kumar, Sanjay Singh, Dhananjay Kumar, Vipul Kumar and Pawan Kumar.
Police sources, however, told The Telegraph that a woman has been detained in connection with the case.
Alok Kumar said that the five people were arrested from the Patna Junction.
The police have recovered one pistol, two magazines, Rs 1.25 lakh, five mobile phones and .32 bore bullets from their possession.
Alok said that Sanjay Kumar used to work as a compounder in the clinic of Ratan Sharma.
The police claimed that the five people hatched a plan to extort money from the renowned doctor.
Sources also said that the people arrested have connections with that of the Pandav Gang, which remained very active around six years ago.
The gang, which have been nipped by the police, was particularly active in Jehanabad and had also spread its tentacles in and around Patna.
The gang, which had a major interest in railway contracts, operated between Patna and Jehanabad and was infamous for crimes like extortion and murder.
Sources said that the arrested people engaged in calling up famous people and demanded extortion money.
A few days back, they had also asked money from a Patna-based engineer, sources said.
Sharma, a resident of Kadamkuan, who has a clinic in the Kotwali police station area, had received an extortion call from an anonymous caller on June 16 at around 12.30am. The person, Manoj Singh, who claimed to have called from Beur Jail, had called from the mobile number 08294990579 allegedly asking for the ransom.
After four more calls, two on the same night, and the fourth one on June 17 afternoon, Sharma lodged an FIR with the Kotwali police station on June 17 late evening.
Later, the police made it clear that no one from the Beur Jail had called Sharma for ransom.
