Bengaluru: The General Manager of Hypercity, Arpita Parikh (37), along with her three subordinates were arrested by Hulimavu police on Wednesday for robbing and extorting money from customers, who either forgot to pay the bill or were caught shoplifting. The arrested four were working at Hypercity’s outlet located in the Royal Meenakshi Mall on Bannerghata Road. The three subordinates who were arrested have been identified as Sujatha (29), a senior staffer; Lokesh and Shankaramurthy, both working as loss prevention officers in the supermarket.
According to the police, the supermarket allegedly had an interrogation room, where the security guards and the management staffers used to lock-up and threaten the erring customers and demand a hefty amount for not lodging a police complaint. Some customers were even allegedly beaten up by the staffers and a hefty amount was extorted from them.
Fearing embarrassment and humiliation some of the victims had coughed up huge sums of money. The management staffers used to target only outsiders and software professionals, but not the locals, the police said. There were no surveillance cameras inside the interrogating room, where the staffers harass the victims, police added.
Gowrav Saxena, a complainant and a private company employee, had shopped for Rs 3,000 and while he was at the billing counter an extra item was found on him, for which he was willing to pay. But instead the billing staff took him to an interrogating room and locked him up for six hours. They demanded Rs 1 lakh from him to let go off without a police complaint, Gowrav stated in his complaint. He has to at last pay Rs 1 lakh to avoid embarrassment and humiliation.
Though the incident happened on March 29, Gowrav tried to find out if it happened only to him or others too were treated in this manner. When he learnt that another person was also targeted in the same way on Wednesday, he came forward to lodge a complaint, said the police. On Wednesday, another customer Prajwal was extorted of Rs 15,000 after a trouser worth Rs 1,500 was found unbilled on him.
This has been going on for a very long time, and there are possibly many victims, who have been robbed and extorted by the Hypercity staffers, Obalesh, ACP Mico Layout subdivision told Deccan Chronicle. “The investigations are underway. We are questioning the arrested to find out since when was these things have been happening and how many victims may have been robbed this way. We are questioning other employees as well,” he added.
We are in touch with authorities regarding this and we are fully cooperating with the investigation, said a Hypercity official.
