GHAZIABAD: A 25-year-old man was arrested on Monday for allegedly trying to extort money from a Bhojpur resident in the name of senior police officials, by making spoof calls through various softwares.Police said Kamil had been getting calls for the past five days from the " mobile numbers " of the circle officer (sadar) and the public relations officer of Ghaziabad SSP, wherein a demand of Rs 1 lakh and a smartphone was made to spare him in a criminal case.The callers told Kamil that two wanted criminals with a reward of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000 respectively on their arrest, and who were recently arrested and sent to jail by Ghaziabad police, had taken his name. Kamil was told to deliver the package of cash, a mobile phone, and a box of sweets to a designated person outside the SSP office on Monday morning.Meanwhile, following a tip-off by an informer, CO (Modinagar) Dharmendra Chauhan approached Kamil and asked him about the extortion calls. He told him that two senior officials were blackmailing him and he also provided the senior cop with two BSNL numbers to Chauhan. But on inquiry, it was found that those numbers were not in use by the officers.Subsequently, a trap was laid by the police and when a man approached Kamil to take the delivery he was nabbed. The accused has been identified as Brajbhan Singh , a resident of Amethi.During interrogation, Singh revealed that the calls were made using a call-spoofing mobile application. Brajbhan said he had got instructions from two convicts — Atul and Devender — currently lodged in a jail in Basti to collect the money from Kamil.Police suspect the calls could have originated from Basti jail itself.“Kamil had spent some time in Basti jail last year and was locked in the same barrack with Atul and Devender. The duo might have collected all information about his criminal background and when he came out of the jail, they made a plan to blackmail him in the name of senior police officials,” SSP Vaibhav Krishna told TOI.An FIR against Atul, Devender and Brajbhan have been registered at Kavi Nagar police station under various sections of the IPC, Information Technology Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act.Spoofing is a process of changing the caller ID to any number other than the number from which a call is made.

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