Bhubaneswar: Police on Tuesday arrested a 27-year-old transgender person from Raigad in Maharashtra for allegedly extorting money from a private hospital at Chandrasekharpur by threatening the authorities of taking legal action for medical negligence.

The police said Lawrence Elenjikal, who claimed to be a law graduate, also tried to extort money from three other private hospitals in the city in a similar manner.

The accused had undergone vaginoplasty, a cosmetic surgery done to reshape and rejuvenate female genitals, in Maharashtra a few months ago, the police said.

"The accused, however, came to Bhubaneswar on May 19 and started visiting private hospitals on the pretext of getting treatment for post-surgery complications," said deputy commissioner of police, Bhubaneswar, Anup Kumar Sahoo.

"The accused, after visiting the hospitals, used to complain of complications and hold those hospitals responsible for that. She also used to threaten the hospital with legal action for medical negligence and gender discrimination," he said.

The accused first visited a private hospital at Chandrasekharpur and demanded Rs 1.75 lakh from the authorities. But the authorities reported the matter to the police. The accused later visited another private hospital in the same area and demanded Rs 2 lakh by threatening the authorities with legal action that would malign its reputation and collected Rs 80,000.

"Initially, we though it was a stray incident, but we registered a case after getting a similar complaint from the second hospital. Subsequent investigations revealed that the accused resorted to similar tactics at two other private hospitals at Nayapalli and Saheed Nagar," said a police officer.

The police said the accused had been staying at a hotel at Nayapalli.

"We nabbed the accused from the hotel. The accused person was arrested under Section 384 (punishment for extortion) and Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. We are investigating to ascertain whether the accused extorted money from other private hospitals," said the cop.