Former Jharkhand deputy chief minister and Silli legislator Sudesh Mahato has lodged a police complaint against anonymous callers demanding Rs 15 lakh.

According to the complaint lodged by Mahendra Sharma, a close aide of the MLA, at Gonda police station in Ranchi on Wednesday evening, two calls came from anonymous phone numbers on August 14 night at the Kanke Road residence of the All Jharkhand Students Union (Ajsu) national president Mahato.

“We received the complaint and had detained a youth. But during investigation it was found that the calls were made using the name of the person appearing in the caller ID. In fact the detained youth was unaware of the call being made using his phone. Our cyber cell is looking into the case and will nab the real culprits,” said Ranchi senior superintendent of police (SSP) Surendra Jha.

Sources said the detained youth, a resident of Jamshedpur in East Singhbhum district, had told the police that he had lodged a missing report about his mobile phone in Jamshedpur.

“It is the first time that we have detected spoofing calls being made to anyone in Ranchi and it seems that the callers were technologically savvy,” said an officer of Gonda police station, who is part of the team probing the incident.

Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing the telephone network to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is different from the true caller. This can lead to a caller ID display showing a phone number different from that of the telephone from which the call was placed. Using a spoofed call service is banned in India by the telecom ministry.

Himanshu Kumar, personal assistant to Mahato, said the MLA who had tested positive for Covid-19 a few days back but has now tested negative, is under home quarantine. He said they had lodged the police complaint after the MLA received the extortion calls.

“The caller had threatened to shoot Sudeshji to death if the demand for Rs 15 lakh was not met. We lodged a complaint at the police station concerned and also gave a copy of the complaint to the Ranchi SSP and other senior police officers,” Kumar said.

In July, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren had also received two anonymous threat emails asking him to mend his ways or face dire consequences. A case had been lodged at the cyber police station in Ranchi in connection with the emails. However, nobody has been arrested in the case so far.

Jharkhand police spokesperson Suman Gupta did not reveal any information when asked about the probe into the threat emails to the chief minister.

“Any information to the media in this case will be communicated at a suitable time,” said Gupta.