The principal of a private school in Shalimar Bagh allegedly received text messages directing her to pay Rs. 5 lakh as extortion money or her school would be blown up.
According to the police, on making a call on the number from where the messages were received, the caller dared them to nab him. The 22-year-old sender , who was doing this to make quick money, was nabbed on Sunday night. Rajni Kholi, principal of Tagore Modern Public School, had received the first of the threatening SMSes on Saturday evening. The message asked her to give Rs. 5 lakh or see the school blown up. The message said that she had 24 hours.
Another message came the next morning reminding the principal that 12 hours had already lapsed. The principal suspected that the sender must not be familiar with the school or else he would have sent the message to the director or someone in higher management and not the principal. Based on the suspicion, she approached the police.
The police called the number from which the messages were being sent. When the suspect learnt that the police were on the other end of the line, he dared the police to track him. “Catch me if you can, is what the caller told us,” a police officer said. The mobile phone’s location was traced to a nearby slum. The suspect identified as Vikas, a jobless young man, was nabbed. “He was using his maternal uncle’s SIM card to make the calls. The uncle had no hand in the crime,” the officer said.
