NEW DELHI, February 6: It was high drama on Chirag Delhi Road this afternoon when the South-West district police nabbed a 25-year-old man who tried to extort Rs 20 lakh from a city doctor while claiming to have engineered the bomb blast near ITO on January 9.The Intelligence Bureau and the Crime Branch have been informed, but when this report was filed police were yet to ascertain whether the accused, Vivian Dias, is actually behind the blasts, but said that it seemed unlikely.
His arrest came through after three days of desperate search by the police following a complaint by a Vasant Kunj doctor, J P S Bakshi, who received a letter on Monday from a person claiming to be a member of the group behind the bomb blasts, the assaults on women in Vasant Kunj and several other sensational crimes in the city. Vivian also threatened to blow up Bakshi and his family with a bomb if he failed to pay the ransom. The doctor contacted the police, and a trap was set up at the spot where the money was to be handedover.
Five police teams were positioned along the road, while some more traversed the section on motor cycles. Around 12:30 p.m., Bakshi was asked to move to another spot where he would receive a signal. The police teams followed suit. At 1 p.m., Vivian waved his hand at Bakshi, who was driving through the busy traffic. The latter pulled up along the divider, and handed over a briefcase to Vivian who had covered his face and was on the other side.
Even as the accused whose father works for the United Nations World Food Programme accepted the briefcase, police men pounced on him. Motorists screeched to a halt all around, many even thinking that a movie was being filmed.
Bakshi, who practises homeopathy, and is a consultant at various nursing homes and hospitals in the city, said: "When I received the letter, I thought that he was some crank. But when he started calling me up the next day onwards to confirm whether I had received his letter, I knew he was serious."He added: "He even started mentioningdetails about my family and my profession which made be nervous. I went to the police and discussed the matter. I moved my family, and decided to go ahead with the deal."
The doctor is also sure that he never saw the youth earlier, not even as a patient. Neither does he have any idea why he was targeted. But Bakshi is sure that Vivian is the same person who threatened him over the phone several times, though each time he called up he identified himself as Khan.
Meanwhile, the police said: "We are more or less sure that he has nothing to do with the blasts or any other incident, but we are cross checking on everything including the possibility that he belongs to some gang. We can't taken any chances, therefore we have sought help from other agencies."
DCP (South-West) S Prakash said that so far Vivian had revealed that his modus operandi was based on what he picked up from several movies.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
