Nearly a week after a man masquerading as an RTI activist was arrested for extorting money from builders, several contractors and realtors in the northern suburbs have approached the police saying that they too had been threatened and forced into coughing up money.Afzal Lakhani, the “RTI activist”, was caught red-handed while extorting money from a local contractor last Friday. The police found hundreds of photographs of under-construction and under-repair buildings from Lakhani’s mobile phone, and hundreds of RTI applications made by him after other builders and contractors complained about his extortion.Lakhani, 46, a resident of Bandongri in Kandivali (East), was arrested following a complaint by a civil contractor who was constantly being threatened by Lakhani. “As soon as he was nabbed, word spread in the area and around 10-15 contractors and small-time builders told us about his past. At least five of them got their names included in the FIR. All of them said that Lakhani had extorted money from them ,” said a police officer on the condition of anonymity.Lakhani knew how to use the Right to Information Act to his advantage. He would file applications and take pictures of the buildings to figure out what the violations were. It was during one such bid that his luck ran out.On January 15, a civil contractor (name withheld by the police) started renovating the first floor of a building in Hanuman Nagar in Kandivali.He received a call from Lakhani who threatened him and initially asked him to pay him Rs 50,000. “Lakhani then approached the site and clicked photographs of the renovation work. He then told the contractor that he (Lakhani) knew that the contractor had paid money to BMC officials to carry out the work which was illegal. The contractor got scared and approached the Samta Nagar police station,” said an official.The complainant submitted an audio recording to the police, in which Lakhani can be clearly heard saying that he would get the building demolished if he’s not paid the money.The police then set up a trap and the victim agreed to meet Lakhani at Sandeep Hotel near the Kandivali railway station. Once there, Lakhani was caught red-handed while accepting Rs 15,000.Lakhani operated mainly in Malad, Kandivali and nearby areas. Senior police inspector Dilip Yadav of Samta Nagar police station, said, “The accused was booked for extortion and criminal intimidation.”