Continuing their investigation into the bid to kidnap a city-based businessman on May 25, the Pulakeshi Nagar police arrested three more persons, all from Uttar Pradesh, who had been given a contract to kidnap Masood Ali. The businessman had been fired at in broad daylight on Assaye Road.
The police also recovered three country-made weapons and four live cartridges from the house of the prime accused Sheikh Zubair.
According to the police, Shabaz Asad, 27, from Saharanpur, and his associates, Furkhan, 26, and Nitin Sharma, 27, from Muzaffarnagar, were working as assistants under Zubair, who runs an interior designing firm in the city.
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Zubair, who had worked in Mr. Masood’s house, decided to kidnap him to extort a ransom of ₹5 crore to recover losses in his business.
As per the plan, he offered Shabaz ₹85,000 to kidnap Mr. Masood. Shabaz, along with his associates, stalked Mr. Masood while he was on his way to work and intercepted him in a car and tried to force him into the car. When he resisted, the accused fired at him and sped away.
The police, who took up a case of attempt to kidnap, verified the CCTV footage. Though the police could not get any leads from the car registration number as it was fake, they stumbled upon scooterists who had followed Mr. Ali’s car.
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The police picked up the scooterists and a detailed questioning led them to arrest Zubair and his associates, Mehtab, Nyamath and Syed Israr, on June 3, who confessed to the crime and told the police about the role of Shabaz and his associates.
The police tracked Shabaz, who was on the run, and arrested him last Tuesday.
All the seven accused arrested in the case have been booked under kidnapping, attempt to murder and under the Arms Act and remanded in judicial custody.