Noida police on Monday arrested three Paytm employees including the secretary of founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Sonia Dhawan, for allegedly trying to extort Rs 20 crore by threatening to leak stolen personal data and confidential information from his laptop and mobile.

The police was informed about the incident by Sharma's brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma, who is a senior vice president in the company.

Sharma, in his FIR, accused Sonia Dhawan, her husband Rupak Jain, Devendra Kumar and Rohit Chomal of theft, extortion, cheating, criminal breach of trust and conspiracy. Chomal, who is a resident of Kolkata, is still at large.

Sharma stated that the extortion bid was allegedly masterminded by Dhawan along with Jain and Kumar by accessing the founder's personal data without his knowledge. He said that the information was further passed on to Chomal, who then who made the extortion call to him on September 20 and demanded Rs 10 crore for stolen data.

"Rohit Chomal threatened us over the call and demanded that we deposit Rs 20 crore in an ICICI Bank account and said that if we fail do so, he will make the personal data public which would harm our personal, business as well as social life," Sharma's brother was quoted saying in the FIR.

However, it was yet to be known as to what data or information was stolen.

"It is to be noted that Dhawan is my brother's secretary and she has access to my brother's mobile and computer," he stated.

Sharma said that after being threatened by Rohit, he deposited Rs 67 lakh and Rs 2 lakh in the said bank account on October 10 and October 15, respectively. Rohit, however, further demanded Rs 10 crore, said Sharma, adding that he was still receiving threats from the same number.

According to Dhawan's Twitter bio, she was promoted to head of communication at the company. "Hard work is glory, everything else is theory," reads her Twitter account. She had worked with Sharma for 10 years.

The three arrested have been charged under section 381, 384, 386, 420, 408, 120-B and 66.

First Published:Oct 23, 2018 12:02 PM IST