Posing as ‘officials’ of the city police and ‘press reporter’, the trio attempted to extort money from Pinakin on the pretext of a “joint operation”.

The accused, Kanhaji Desai, Rajesh Patel and Bhavesh Patel, later brought down their demand to Rs 30,000, said the police. Patel is the proprietor of Umiya Camp Institute of CNC Programme in Bapunagar.

According to the case details, Bhavesh approached Pinakin about three days ago and asked for a duplicate ITI certificate from him. Bhavesh, the police added, convinced an initially reluctant Pinakin by reportedly offering him Rs 17,000 for the certificate.

On Saturday, Pinakin found out that it was a trap when he went to Subhash Circle to collect an advance payment of Rs 8,000 from Bhavesh. On reaching there, he saw Bhavesh with Kanhaji and Rajesh, the police said.

The three cooked up a story saying while Kanhaji and Rajesh were officials of the DCB, Bhavesh was a reporter in a leading Gujarati daily.

“Accusing him of selling forged educational certificates, they demanded a bribe of Rs 70,000 for not filing a criminal case against him,” said a policeman.

The bribe money was later reducded to Rs 30,000 and it was decided that Pinakin would pay the amount on Sunday. Pinakin spoke about this to a local media person, who in turn, tipped off the DCB and a trap was laid.