Gurugram: A 35-year-old woman arrested by the Gurugram Police’s Special Task Force (STF) this week for allegedly demanding a ransom of Rs 2 crore from a hotel owner, wasn’t just anyone. The accused, Manisha Chaudhary, also known as ‘Lady Don’ and ‘Ransom Queen’, was wanted in four states in connection with over six serious cases, including murder, extortion, and fraud, police said.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Gurugram) Varun Dahiya, who briefed the media after Manisha’s arrest, told ThePrint that she had extorted crores in ransom from large business owners across Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. The Gurugram Police had earlier announced a reward of Rs 20,000 for information on her whereabouts.
Dahiya added that Manisha was also operating an international syndicate on behalf of her husband, Kaushal Chaudhary, associated with the Bambiha gang, known rivals of the notorious Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
How she was arrested
According to a statement issued by the Gurugram Police, on 15 September, a staff member of a hotel in Gurugram called the Bilaspur police station and reported that the hotel had received a call from someone who introduced himself as a member of the Kaushal Chaudhary and Amit Dagar gang and demanded a ransom of Rs 2 crore.
The person further threatened to open fire at the hotel if the ransom was not paid and warned him that they would kill him if he reported it to the police. Following this complaint, a case was registered under relevant sections, the statement added.
Police teams from Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, and Delhi were involved in her arrest. The STF team arrested her Monday in Gurugram’s Devi Lal Colony after receiving input from Rajasthan Police, a source in the Gurugram Police said.
She had been remanded to the Manesar Crime Branch’s custody for six days for further investigation, the statement said.
“A police team led by Sub-Inspector Lalit Kumar, in-charge of the crime branch in Manesar, Gurugram, successfully arrested a woman accused Manisha (age 35 years), wife of Kaushal Chaudhary, resident of Naharpur Rupa village, Gurugram, who had a bounty of Rs 20,000 in connection with this ransom call,” the Gurugram police statement said.
According to the source quoted above, Manisha is implicated in more than six cases across the four states. She is accused of firing at a person in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, and, preliminary investigations have revealed, involved firing incidents in Kapurthala (Punjab) and Neemrana (Rajasthan), Panchkula, among others.
At least three cases have been previously registered against her in Gurugram in relation to “extortion, murder, and fraud”, the police statement said, without giving details.
“During police questioning, the accused woman also disclosed her involvement in the firing incident at Hotel Highway King in Neemrana, Rajasthan, to demand ransom. Additionally, she revealed that she had provided illegal weapons to four people arrested in a police encounter in Manesar Valley and to one person detained in Sector-29, Gurugram sometime back,” the statement added.
Revelations in custody
The police source quoted earlier told ThePrint that during her remand, Manisha made several revelations which the police are now cross-checking Over the past seven months of being on the run, she said, she spent most of her time in Rajasthan.
There, she rented flats not only in Jaipur but also in several other districts. She was also allegedly receiving directions from her brother, gangster Saurav Gadoli, who is based abroad and was part of Kaushal’s crime syndicate.
Through her associates are active in Gurugram and Rajasthan, Manisha herself extorted crores of rupees from major liquor and betting operators as well as hotel owners in the regions, she allegedly told the police.
She had, so far, avoided disclosing the exact amount of money extorted and the number of people targeted, the source said.
Entry into the crime world
Manisha, a native of Gurugram’s Gadauli village, and Kaushal were married seven years ago. She took over Kaushal’s syndicate after he was imprisoned in 2019.
Apart from her brother, Kaushal’s associates who are part of the syndicate—Pawan Shaukeen and Dinesh alias Gandhi—are also stationed abroad, the police source told ThePrint, without giving details.
Kaushal has 30 serious cases registered against him. He is currently imprisoned in Gurugram’s Bhondsi Jail along with his associate Amit Dagar for the 2019 murder of the famous Gurugram bookie Vijay Batra, also known as Tantrik. Dagar is infamous for once having demanded ransom from Lawrence himself.
According to Gurugram Police, they linked Manisha to this murder case in 2021. She was arrested and spent two years in jail before being granted bail in 2021.
After her release, Manisha and Dagar’s wife, Twinkle, started a ransom racket in Khandsa Mandi. In 2023, on learning of this, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Gurugram Police arrested them both.
This time when she was released on bail, Manisha started running her husband’s crime syndicate, a police source said, adding that, with Kaushal and Amit Dagar in jail, she was managing the entire network, directing henchmen, and personally threatening businessmen and extorting money.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)