Mangaluru: The Mangaluru City police booked four undertrial prisoners under the Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act (KCOCA) for their alleged involvement in a case of extortion inside the district prison. A case in this regard was registered at Barke police station.City police commissioner Sudheer Kumar Reddy CH said a case was registered against Dhanush Bhandary alias Dhanu, Dilesh Bangera alias Dillu, Loy Vegas alias Loy, and Sachin Talapadi under sections 308(4) and 3(5) of BNS for committing extortion while in jail from a fellow prisoner. They assaulted a fellow prisoner and extorted Rs 20,000 from him, which was deposited in the accounts given by the victim’s wife.“The accused already had more than one case under trial in court, and the cases attract more than three years’ punishment against them,” the commissioner said. The punishment under the KCOCA Act is a minimum of five years, which may extend to life imprisonment. If their act results in the death of any person, the punishment is either life imprisonment or death. Any person who is a member of an organised crime is also punishable by at least five years to life, even if there are no previous cases against them.A DSP rank officer has to investigate the case as mandated in the act, and ACP north Srikanth is nominated as the investigator.It may be recalled that undertrial Mithun, lodged in cell No. 5 of Block B in connection with a case registered at Ullal police station on April 25, had alleged that four undertrial prisoners had assaulted him on July 9 and demanded Rs 50,000 from Mithun.They also threatened to kill him if he failed to pay and had also warned him against reporting the incident to jail staff or officials. Fearing for his life, Mithun remained silent and later called his wife using the jail phone booth and arranged for Rs 20,000 to be transferred via PhonePe to numbers reportedly belonging to Sachin.On July 12, when the assistant commissioner of police and inspector of Barke police station visited the jail for inspection, Mithun submitted a written complaint about the assault to the superintendent. After discussing the matter with prison officers and staff, the jail superintendent lodged a complaint at Barke police station seeking legal action against undertrial prisoners.
