Two held in Malaysia for trying to extort money from Indian

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian police have arrested two people who posed as policemen and telephoned a missing Indian millionaire’s wife to demand money for his safe return.

Selangor state police chief Khalid Abu Bakar confirmed the arrests following the probe into A. Muthuraja’s disappearance in January.

The two had telephoned Muthuraja’s wife S. Usharani to say that her husband was involved in drug trafficking and was under police detention.

They had offered to help him get free for RM one million, of which RM 80,000 was paid by Muthuraja’s brother Kasi Viswanathan in April.

Muthuraja’s disapparance and possible killing has come to light after last week’s murder of woman entrepreneur Sosilawati Lawiya, her driver, lawyer and banker.

The four were killed, their bodies burnt and the remains disposed off in a riverbed near a farm house belonging to two lawyer brothers.

The brothers have not been named so far. But police claim to have built an “iron clad” case against them, media reports said Sunday.

The Star newspaper said the lawyer brothers are aged 41 and 38. One of them owns a poultry farm in Sungai Gadung, near Tanjung Sepat in Selangor state, where the multiple crimes took place.

Investigations revealed that numerous police reports had been lodged against the brothers, ranging from murder to fraud, the newspaper said.