PORVORIM
Porvorim police busted an interstate gang, after arresting two women from Mumbai and West Bengal on charges of working as escorts to lure tourists and later extorting money by threatening to file false rape cases.
A taxi driver and another person from Candolim have also been arrested in this connection.
Porvorim police arrested the two women and a driver for allegedly assaulting a tourist in a hotel at Porvorim and exhorting an amount of Rs 20,000 from him.
Sagar Ansari of Punjab had filed a complaint with Porvorim Police stating that the incident had taken place in the hotel at about 3.20 pm on Friday, when the two accused, Babita Upadhyay and Sutapa Banerjee allegedly assaulted him and his friend and later through extortion, forced him to transfer an amount of Rs 20,000 in different account numbers.
Porvorim police registered the offence under Section 309 (4) read with 3(5) of BNS and began investigations.
Porvorim Police Inspector Rahul Parab said a police team led by PSI Mandar Parab and PSI Arun Shirodkar managed to trace the car driver Deepak Salgaonkar (37) of Candolim, and seized the car at Calangute.
During investigation, PI Parab said two accused women Babita Upadhyay (28) of Mumbai and Sutapa Banerjee (38) from West Bengal were traced at Anjuna as they were in the process of fleeing to Mumbai.
Another accused, Mahadev Basu Rathod (30) of Orda-Candolim, was also arrested after police found out that some portion of the extorted money was forcibly transferred into his account.
All four accused have been remanded to police custody for five days.
PI Parab said the accused involved in this case had been running an interstate and extortion racket, wherein they would go as escort girls in the hotel of male tourists and would extort money from them by threatening to file false rape cases.
PSI Arun Shirodkar is conducting further investigation under the supervision of PI Rahul Parab.
