A senior resident doctor working at Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) has received an extortion demand, highlighting once more the law and order situation in the Patna City area.

Dr Rajendra Prasad said he received a letter through post last week that demanded that he pay up Rs 10 lakh. If he fails to pay the money he and his wife would be killed, the letter warned.

'The miscreants had asked me to deposit Rs 10 lakh in the account of one Kanchan Devi at the Punjab National Bank's Chowk branch,' Prasad told The Telegraph on Sunday.

'I was shocked on receiving the extortion demand sent through the letter. I was also surprised as the miscreants had asked me to deposit the money in a bank account,' he added.

The one-page letter said that since Prasad has a practice that people throng to, he should 'share' his 'huge' earnings with others too.

Prasad, who is a senior resident orthopaedic at NMCH, lives in Patna City's Khajekela area with his wife and two children. He also visits Bihta thrice a week on medical calls.

'That's why I didn't ignore the extortion letter,' he said.

Prasad informed the local police about the letter. The cops, acting on the complaint by the doctor, have provided him security.

The police have also detained a man named Bittu.

Satyendra Kumar, the Khajekala police station house officer, said: 'The woman Kanchan Devi on whose account the miscreants had asked to deposit the money is a domestic help working in the Khajekala area. The police have detained Kanchan Devi's son Bittu. However, the two have pleaded ignorance.'

Police sources said that the handwriting in the letter does not match that of Bittu or his mother.

The cops, the sources said, suspect that someone who knows Kanchan Devi had tried to trap the woman by sending the extortion demand in her name.

But the police are investigating the case from all possible angles and not ruling out any possibility at the moment.

In the past one month, the Patna City area has witnessed several criminal incidents.

Last week, miscreants shot dead a young man at Khajekala minutes after a police patrol passed through the area.

The victim, identified as Rajiv Kumar, the son of a kite trader Jitendra Prasad, was killed at Begum Ki Haveli area of Khajekala.

The 24-year old had come to Patna from Delhi to celebrate Rakshabandhan with his sisters.