New Delhi: A 31-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly making an extortion demand of Rs 10 lakh from a businessman in Shahdara's Seemapuri area, police said today.

Sonu Khan, who works as a sofa maker and is a resident of Shaheed Nagar in Ghaziabad, used to make threat calls to one Raja Khan, who owns an interior decoration office in Dilshad Colony.

Raja had been receiving threat calls from an unknown number from the past few days. The caller used to demand protection money from him to work peacefully in the area, police said.

Raja initially avoided these calls but on April 7, Sonu along with two of his accomplices visited the businessman's office which was captured on the CCTV cameras installed in the complainant's shop.

"In which, the accused could be seen taking out a pistol and putting it in front of Raja to scare him. They demanded Rs 10 lakh as protection money and threatened him of dire consequences if he failed to arrange the money, police said.

The businessman requested Sonu to give him more time to arrange the money, after which he approached police with a complaint and after scanning the CCTV footage from the area and scanning of records of criminal elements of the area, the accused was arrested on June 28 from his Ghaziabad house, police said.

The pistol used to threaten the complainant has been recovered from the possession of the accused.

"Sonu revealed that he along with his associates, Salman and Deepak, went to the office of Raja to extort money from him," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Nupur Prasad said.