Cachar Police arrests miscreant for identifying himself as "journalist and SP's man" while extorting money

Last night at around 10:00 pm, a man who identified himself as a journalist from a cable TV News channel, entered the house of a residence of Saif Uddin Laskar at Dungripar village located in Sonai. The individual was confronted by the female members of the house and it was explained that the male members aren’t in yet and so he shall wait outside. But he “barged” in and started recording footage with his mobile phone.

Petrified by the situation, the female member of the house called her husband and asked him to return home as soon as possible. Meanwhile, according to the wife of Said Uddin Laskar, the said journalist mentioned that he is “SP Cachar’s man”.

“He recorded footage of local betelnuts kept under the bed and started saying that we need to pay Rs 50,000 as we are running an illegal business. Time and again, he kept on mentioning that he is SP Cachar’s man and he has been informed by SP Cachar about the business,” explained Saif Uddin Laskar’s wife.

On the other hand, after Saif Uddin Laskar got the call, he went to the Sonai Police Station and informed the same to Police. The OC deployed a unit to look into the matter and all of them rushed to the spot immediately.

“As we reached our home, we saw that there were two individuals next to an Alto who escaped from the spot after seeing the Police van. After we entered our home, the person identified himself as Debashish Das and said that he is a journalist from the Ishaan Bangla channel. The Police made a few verification calls and then detained him at the Police station,” said Saif Uddin Laskar.

After detaining Debashish Das, who is a resident of Kanakpur part II, the Police made a few calls to identify if he is indeed a reporter from Ishaan Bangla. However, it became clear very soon that he has no official strings attached with the Cable TV Channel or any other registered media establishment. Based on the FIR and prima facie evidence, Police arrested Debashish Das and kept him in the lockup of Sonai Police Station.

After Das was detained by Police another family of the same village informed that they were also looted by the same person. Last week, Das went to another residence of the same village and extorted Rs 25,000. The brother of the victim said that they got petrified as Das made a call to someone who talked as the SP of Cachar in Assamese. “These are all local betelnuts we have been selling for decades. He came and accused my brother of smuggling Burmese betel nuts and started demanding Rs 30,000. He said he is a journalist and has been sent by the SP himself. My brother got scared and paid Rs 25,000 which Das said is for SP and Rs 1,000 for himself, a total of Rs 26,000”