Prostitutes Pretend To Be Journalists, Blackmail Man For Hiring Them!

Minister of State for External Affairs, General VK Singh, can take heart as a gang of 'presstitutes' are indeed active in the city, but just not the kind he had referred to when he coined the term as an insult to media personnel.

zerohedge.com//Representational Image

Posing as media persons, a nine-member gang including a woman targeted a hapless 32-year-old caterer for blackmail and extortion on Friday evening. They forced the caterer, KK Guru Raj, to pose with the woman, at his residence in Banashankari Stage III, strew condoms and contraceptives across the floor, and took photographs of him with the woman before threatening to publish those in a newspaper to convey that he was running a prostitution racket at his residence.

They tied him up and assaulted him before ransacking the house and escaping with cash, vehicles and gold ornaments, all worth around Rs 8.3 lakh. After they escaped, Raj managed to free himself and alert the neighbours before rushing to Girinagar police to file a complaint.

Interestingly, the entire gang of nine was netted by the city police on Monday after two gang members' bragging about the robbery was overheard by a police informer in a bar in Byatarayanapura.

Amit Chauhan/Representational Image

The Plot

Raj found himself in this predicament on Friday evening after his wife and his mother-in-law left for the latter's place. At around 6.30 pm, he received a call from a woman looking for a caterer to arrange food for about 25 people for a private event she was organising.

His business instinct prevailing, Raj gave his address to the woman, asking her to visit him so they could discuss the food order and the menu for the event and to figure out a quote.

A couple of hours later, the woman called him saying she was waiting at a spot and could not find his place. Raj went on his bike to pick her up from the spot. But when he reached there, he realised that the woman was accompanied by two men. He led them home, nevertheless, hoping to get a hefty order.

But midway through the discussions regarding the event, the woman went out of the house on the pretext of speaking on her mobile phone. But she returned in a couple of minutes with six more men.

The nine then surrounded Raj and locked the door from inside. One of the men started strewing condoms and contraceptives on the floor, while another forced him to stand close to the woman. A third began taking photographs of Raj and the woman standing close to each other in the midst of the strewn contraceptives on the floor. And then the blackmailing and assault began after tying him up, after which they fled with the valuables and his vehicle.

bangaloremirror

Swift Action By Police

The incident happened on Friday, but in a swift action by the city police, all the nine were arrested on Monday. They recovered the cash, vehicles and gold ornaments worth around Rs 8.3 lakhs. Raj's complaint was registered by the Girinagar police while the gang was arrested by the Byatarayanapura police.

Deputy commissioner of police (West) MN Anucheth, told Bangalore Mirror: "Old-school policing helped us arrest the gang of nine, including the woman. The gang of robbers was robbing the gullible by laying honey-traps. Of the nine, two of the accused while consuming alcohol at a bar in Byatarayanapura were bragging about the robberies which they had committed at Varthur, Sunkadakatte and Girinagar. The two were also plotting their next target. An informant who was present at the bar gave us the crucial information. The two were taken in for questioning; and their confession resulted in the arrest of the seven others including the woman."

The arrested have been identified as Jyothi alias Nagamma (the woman), 29, of Jnanabharathi; Shivanand, 24, of Ittamadu; Dileep alias Balloon, 18, and Vikas, 18, both residents of Srinagar; Sharath Kumar, 19, of Veerabhadranagar; Guru Prasad, 19, of Avalahalli; Vinod Kumar, 20, of Thyagarajanagar; Rathan, 25, and Ravi Raj, 26, both residents of Ramamurthy Nagar.