SUMMARY
Chomal made the claim in the Allahabad High Court earlier this month
Uttar Pradesh Police has termed Chomal the 'main accused'
Co-accused Sonia Dhawan and Roopak Jain have been denied bail
In a new twist to the Paytm data theft case, one of the accused, Rohit Chomal, said that founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and his brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma had expressed their “thankfulness and gratitude” to him on WhatsApp messages.
Chomal made the claim in a 14-page petition submitted to the Allahabad High Court earlier this month, according to a media report.
Chomal, who has received protection from arrest until the police find credible evidence against him, said that the Sharmas had thanked him for helping them reach company vice-president for communications, Sonia Dhawan, and others involved in the data theft case.
However, the Uttar Pradesh Police has termed him the main accused and say that Chomal had reportedly made extortion calls to the Sharma brothers for $2.71 Mn (INR 20 Cr).
Chomal has denied this accusation, claiming instead that he was “an instrument” in helping the Sharma brothers reach the accused, Dhawan, her husband Roopak Jain, and a Paytm employee, Devinder Kumar.
Notably, Jain had also said that he was a victim of blackmail and claimed to have received a call demanding $711.8 K (INR 5 Cr) on September 22. He had also claimed that he “did not know of anyone named Rohit Chomal.” Jain’s family maintained that the husband-wife duo was innocent.
As Inc42 reported earlier, on the morning of October 22, police arrested Dhawan, alleged to be the mastermind behind an extortion plan, and two of the other three accused in the case. They had allegedly planned to extort money from Vijay Shekhar Sharma using stolen personal data from his computer and mobile phone and were threatening to leak it.
An FIR was then filed by Paytm founder’s brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma, who reportedly received an extortion call from Rohit Chomal. Inc42 has a copy of the filed FIR.
[The development was reported by ET.]
