Five arrested for demanding ransom from Punjabi businessmen in Canada

Vancouver: The Peel police have arrested five persons in the past months on charges of demanding huge sums of money from Punjabi businessmen as ransom and firing. Three Punjabis were among those arrested.

Peel Police Deputy Chief Mark Andrew said that a few months ago, the owners of many commercial establishments received calls from unknown numbers demanding large sums of money and their stores were also opened to scare some businessmen.

The police had been on the lookout for the alleged culprits since then. Finally, the evidence was collected and the accused were arrested, including Dupinderdeep Cheema (36), Beant Dhillon (51), both residents of Brampton and Arundeep Thind (39) homeless, along with two others, on 14 different charges.

The accused will be produced before the court after further interrogation.

The accused used to call up businessmen belonging to the South Asian community and demand ransom and also open fire at their business places to scare away many so that they thought it fit to pay the ransom amount instead of informing the police due to terror, the police official said.

The police officer has also appealed to other aggrieved businessmen to come forward who could not complain to the police for some reason earlier.