‘Taliban ameer’: Man arrested for threats, extortion

LAHORE: A man has been arrested for making threatening phone calls and seeking to extort people by posing as a Taliban ameer. Ravi Road police said that Abdul Rizwan alias Janu had, among other people, phoned industrialist Chaudhry Shahid Hussain and threatened to kill him and his family if he did not pay him a large sum of money. Hussain made a complaint to the police and a case was registered against him under Section 25-D (misusing phone to cause annoyance) of the Telegraph Act and Section 387 (making death threats to commit extortion) of the Pakistan Penal Code at Ravi Road police station. Hussain said that the caller had identified himself as an ameer of the Tehreek-i-Taliban and demanded payment of Rs2.5 million. A police team was set up and it found and arrested Rizwan. His mobile phone and SIM card were also seized.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2012.