Sherif, the main accused in the Shamna Kasim extortion case, was taken into custody by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Saturday morning.
According to the police, the Palakkad native masterminded several of the crimes perpetrated by the gang. He has also been named in a human trafficking case, lodged after a complaint by an Alappuzha model who said that she was held against her will by the gang members.
Meanwhile, a Tik Tok video of the accused Sherif had appeared in which he is seen sitting in front of a police jeep. Following this, the investigation team is also probing the accused’s links with the police department.
“One of our teams is interrogating the man and based on that, we will be investigating the case further,” Kochi DCP G Poonguzhali told Asianet News.
Apart from the four complaints including Shamna Kasim’s that the police have received against the gang, four more women turned up and submitted complaints against the accused persons on Friday and Saturday.
“We have not registered any more FIRs. We are still taking statements after receiving the other complaints. We will figure out if we have to lodge fresh FIRs against the accused,” Poonguzhali IPS added.
The DCP also added that the team was still investigating if any more people were involved in the incident.
“We have confiscated their vehicles and the car they used to go to Shamna’s residence. Now we are probing whether there are more people involved in the case. We have arrested everybody who has been named in the case and everyone who visited the actor’s house,” Poonguzhli confirmed.
On Friday, two more accused were arrested by the police. Abdul Salam was taken into custody while attempting to surrender before the district magistrate in Kochi, while another accused named Abu Backer was arrested from Vadanappally in Thrissur district.
With Sherif in custody, the SIT has successfully traced all the seven accused named by Shamna in her FIR and are currently interrogating them.
The four other men who were arrested on Tuesday have been identified as Rafeeq from Vadanappally, Ramesh from Kadavanoor, Sharath from Kaipamangalam, and Chettuva native Ashraf.
The impersonators got in touch with Shamna and her family members posing as wealthy men. They later threatened the actor and attempted to extort Rs 1 lakh from her. Following a complaint to the police by Shamna’s mother, four of them were arrested and a serious racket which involved gold smuggling, extortion, impersonation and sexual exploitation was exposed.
The accused have been booked under various sections of human trafficking based on the complaint of the Alappuzha based model.
They have also been booked under sections 451 (House-trespass in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment), 387 (Putting person in fear of death or of grievous hurt, in order to commit extortion), 511(420) (cheating or dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 506(i) (criminal intimidation), 120 B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.