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Bathinda: After the attack on Punjabi singer-actor Parmish Verma on April 13, now singer-turned-politician Balkar Sidhu has received extortion threats.
Sidhu, in his complaint to the Punjab Police cyber cell, on Sunday, alleged that he had received many extortion calls and that his FB account had been hacked.
Sidhu said, “An unidentified caller started making calls at my office in Mohali on April 20 and demanded Rs 8,400. Later, I started getting calls on my mobile phone. The caller threatened to put obscene videos on my Facebook page to tarnish my image if I didn’t pay him the money. When the amount was transferred into the account given by the caller, he started demanding Rs 1 lakh and continued threatening me with the dire consequences and social blackmailing. The caller subsequently hacked my Facebook account.”
The singer alleged that the caller spoke Hindi with a south Indian accent and claimed he was from Hyderabad. “The caller also sent a mobile payment platform account to deposit the money. I did not want to go public with this, but when the caller continued to issue threats, I decided to file a complaint with the cyber cell,” the singer said.
Crime cell assistant inspector general of police (AIG) H S Mann said, “We are inquiring into the matter and have sought details of the numbers from which the calls were made and from which server the Facebook account of Balkar has been hacked.”
Punjabi singer had a brief brush with politics. He had joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2014 and was nominated as the party candidate for the Talwandi Sabo bypoll, only to be replaced by Baljinder Kaur. He was expelled from AAP after he decided to contest as an independent.
He had also sought a Congress ticket from Talwandi Sabo or Maur constituency in the 2017 assembly elections, but didn’t get one. After this, he campaigned for the Congress by performing at the party’s rallies and events.
