Pradeep Kumar Singh. Telegraph picture

Patna, May 18: A Patna police team is probing an alleged extortion threat received by Araria BJP MP Araria Pradeep Kumar Singh. The complaint was lodged on Friday evening. The MP has received extortion calls earlier too.

Singh received a call on his mobile around 1.51pm yesterday in which the caller, who identified himself as Rohit or Rahul, allegedly sought Rs 10 crore.

The caller threatened the MP with dire consequences, like blowing up his house in Delhi with dynamite, if he failed to cough up the money.

The MP lodged a complaint with Kotwali police station in the capital.

“I was in Patna when the extortionist demanded the money,” Singh said, adding that he also spoke to Araria superintendent of police (SP) Akhtar Hussain and informed him of the threat call.

City superintendent of police Jayant Kant said an investigation was on to ascertain the identity of the caller.

“We are confident that the culprit will be identified and brought to book at the earliest,” he said, adding that if required, a team would be sent to Araria to gather more information in connection with the call. Sources said the BJP leader had received such a threat call for the third time in the past four years.

Earlier, on May 6 last year, he had received a text message on his mobile, in which the sender asked for Rs 10 lakh as extortion money. A formal complaint was lodged against an unidentified person with the Kotwali police station in Patna on May 7, 2012.

Around three people were arrested for the text message but it turned out they were not the ones who had sent the text message.

The actual senders had taken the SIM card on the basis of fake documents and addresses. In 2008, another extortionist had sent him a letter by post, demanding money.

The letter was sent a few months before the Lok Sabha election of 2009, a confidant of the MP told The Telegraph.

The Araria SP said the police would co-operate with their counterparts in Patna to help in the investigation.

“The MP called me on my mobile and apprised me of the threat call,” Hussain said. He said that the MP’s security would be reviewed in the wake of the threat.