Jul 29 (Mumbai Mirror): The police have arrested two people for allegedly extorting Rs 2.5 lakh from a Malad resident by posing as Mumbai police crime branch officials. The duo allegedly barged into the victim's office in Malad to carry out a search on July 16 and threatened him with dire consequences if he did not pay them Rs 5 lakh.

The duo have been identified as Amit Harishankar Jalan, 25, a chartered accountant from Thane, and Asif Younis Ansari, 40, a journalist working with a news website.

According to Senior Inspector Shashank Sandbhor of Malad police station, the accused barged into the office of Vikram Singh, 25, who runs a centre of Karnataka Open University in Malad. The two claimed to be members of the Special Task Force of the Mumbai crime branch. They carried out a search and seized some documents without showing any identification.

"They told Singh that the centre is running illegally and asked him to pay Rs 5 lakh if he did not want to be booked and arrested. Singh, who did not realise that they were not the police, got scared and did not want to take any chances as he thought they would falsely implicate him. He negotiated and paid them Rs 2.5 lakh in instalments over the next few days," said Sandbhor.

The duo continued to threaten Singh over the phone and told him that they would kill him if he did not agree to their terms.

After a few days, Singh realised that he was duped and that the two were not policemen. "He approached the police station after which we began investigating the case and arrested Jalan and Ansari on Sunday. They are currently in judicial custody," said Sandbhor. The police are yet to recover the extortion amount. Officials said that they would recover it soon.