For 20 days they followed their target, a businessmen, collected all information on his daily movements to plan a foolproof kidnap, but forgot to do their homework on executing the ransom plan.
Two persons — Manish (23) and Satnam Singh alias Raju (44) — were arrested by the Outer Delhi’s Special Staff on Monday, two days after they kidnapped a Paschim Vihar businessman, Saurabh, and asked his family for ₹5crore as ransom.
What gave them away was the mobile phone set used for making the ransom call and the choice of day to kidnap the victim.
On Saturday night, Anand Gupta, a resident of Moti Nagar, got a call that his son, Saurabh, had been kidnapped on his way home from his electronics shop in Paschim Vihar. The accused told the family that they will call the next day to tell them the amount to be given for his release.
Ransom call on Sunday
Mr. Anand then approached the Moti Nagar police station, but was referred to Paschim Vihar police as the incident happened in their jurisdiction. There, a case was registered and the investigation was taken up by a team including Sub-Inspector Kamlesh, Assistant Sub-Inspector Rajbir, Head Constable Dharmender and six other officers.
According to a senior police officer privy to the case, Manish made the ransom call from Saurabh’s number, but used his own cell phone for the SIM card.
When the number was put on technical surveillance, the location was traced to Bahadurgarh and the IMEI number of the mobile phone was found be of Manish which became the turning point in the investigation.
The next day, Manish called Mr. Anand again and demanded ₹5crore as ransom. “Mr. Anand told them that banks were closed on Sunday and he will be able to arrange the money only on Monday,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, after identifying Manish, the police examined his call records and found that he had called Satnam several times and the location of the latter’s phone was the same as Manish’s.
The police said that the location of their phones was traced to Nilothi Extension on Sunday which remained the same through the day. The police then deployed officers in the area on Sunday night and waited for the accused to come out.
On Monday morning, around 9:45 a.m., the duo stepped out with the victim and the police apprehended them and rescued Saurabh. “The victim was beaten up and they were holding his hand when they exited the house in Nilothi Extension,” the officer said.
During interrogation, Manish confessed that he had worked at a godown owned by Saurabh four years ago and knew Satnam because they were both in the business of selling old cars. “The duo had been following the victim for the last 20 days to know which route he used to take. On Saturday, they finally kidnapped him up from near a fire brigade office,” said the officer. “They took Saurabh to Bahadurgarh in his car. The reason of going to Bahadurgarh was to mislead the police on their location,” he added. The duo rented the Nilothi Extension house nearly a month ago to carry out the kidnapping, the police said.
DCP (Outer) MN Tiwari said that they have recovered two bikes, a pistol and the victim’s car used in the commission of the crime.
