Police said the accused is addicted to drugs and wanted to become a criminal (File)
A man was arrested in North Delhi's Narela, close to the Haryana border, for allegedly posing as gangster Neeraj Bawana's brother and trying to extort Rs 20 lakh from the estranged in-laws of a woman he was trying to impress, police said Sunday.
Saurabh Bhardwaj, 22, a resident of Jhajjar district in Haryana, had the family details of the woman's in-laws and monitoring their movements daily, a senior police official said.
Police said the accused is addicted to drugs and wanted to become a criminal ("bhai").
He got the woman's phone number from a friend. He introduced himself as Bawana's younger brother "Pankaj" and gave expensive gifts to her, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer North) Gaurav Sharma said.
When the woman told him she wanted to talk to her parents about them, Bhardwaj asked her not to do it as his uncle had passed away. But the woman told her family about it and they visited Neeraj Bawana's house and the whole incident came to light, police said.
The woman had told Bhardwaj she was married to a man in Khera village but the marriage did not last as her in-laws mistreated her, they said.
Bhardwaj made the ransom calls to the in-laws to impress the woman, police said.
A police investigation found the extortion calls generated in Bahadurgarh in Haryana.
DCP Sharma said the phone number was put on surveillance and Bhardwaj was arrested.