Noida, Jan 30 (IANS): A police officer and three journalists were arrested here on Tuesday midnight for extorting money from a call centre owner. Cash totalling Rs 8 lakh was recovered from the police officer's office, police claimed on Wednesday.

The police said that Manoj Pant, the Station House Officer (SHO) of the Sector 20 police station and his journalist facilitators -- Udit Goel, Raman Thakur and Sushil Pandit -- sought to extort money from the call centre owner against whom a case was filed in November 2018.

In order to provide relief to the call centre owner, a deal was reportedly finalized for "crores of rupees" and an advance of Rs 8 lakh was handed over to the SHO through the journalists who were caught red-handed by Senior Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Krishna, his spokesman Manish Saxena said.

Pant carried out the raid after being tipped off about the racket, the spokesman said.

Additional SHO Jagvir Singh, who was found driving a Mercedes car, was suspended, added the spokesman.