The Ludhiana police have initiated a probe into two recent incidents of extortion calls made to two persons.In one of the cases, a call was received by singer Parmish Verma’s manager Harvinder Singh Hardy of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar, Ludhiana. The caller allegedly demanded a payment of Rs 10 crore. An FIR has been registered against unidentified persons at the Sarabha Nagar police station on Wednesday.Hardy alleged that he had been receiving WhatsApp calls from foreign numbers since February 14. Callers identified themselves as members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and threatened him of dire consequences if the money was not paid.In another case, a city-based trader and BJP activist allegedly received extortion calls by a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang last week. An FIR was registered at the Model Town police station against unidentified persons on Wednesday. It stated that the trader and BJP activist Gurbir Singh Garcha had received an extortion call through a recorded voice message demanding Rs 5 crore. The caller claimed to be Goldy Brar (Satinderjit Singh), a fugitive Indian gangster, the FIR stated.The complainant received repeated calls and finally received an ultimatum on February 22, for ignoring the earlier calls. “You are ignoring our call but how will you ignore the bullet,” stated the final message.Garcha informed the police that he had approached senior functionaries earlier for getting security and a case was pending in the Punjab and High Court regarding demands raised for security from the police. Garcha owns a petrol pump and is also a real estate entrepreneur.ACP Guriqbal Singh said a coordinated probe had been initiated to establish the point of origin of the threat calls and WhatsApp messages.Goldy Brar is wanted for masterminding the murders of singer Sidhu Moosewala and Dera Sacha Sauda follower Pardeep Singh, besides giving threats to actor Salman Khan.Goldy was also on Canada’s top 25 most-wanted list.Besides traditional law enforcement methods, specialised digital tools, forensic and cyber techniques are being used to establish the source of threat calls and ascertaining the identities of local criminals working for kingpins.