A youth from Visakhapatnam sent the city police on a wild-goose chase last week, after his father said he had been kidnapped for ransom by an armed gang and was being held hostage in Chennai.
The police team cracked the case within hours only to discover the youth had staged the kidnapping in order to lay his hands on a large sum of money, and marry his girlfriend against his father’s wishes.
Sources with the Visakhapatnam police said the youth, a software engineer, was reported missing last December by his father, a leading businessman in Andhra Pradesh. “After a thorough probe, we tracked his son to south Chennai. By then, the youth had contacted his father and told him he had been kidnapped by terrorists who were keeping him captive in Chennai and demanding Rs. 50 lakh for his release,” said an officer attached to the Visakhapatnam police force.
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The businessman rushed to Chennai and contacted the city police after the youth told his father he was being held hostage at a house in Tambaram where explosives had been planted.
“We traced his mobile phone and posted our teams in and around the area. When the businessman told his son he was carrying only Rs. 800, the youth, much to our surprise, asked him to deposit the amount in his bank account. When he came to withdraw the money, he was rounded up but he claimed he was let out only to bring the money,” said a senior officer of the city police.
Soon after, police teams located the apartment where the youth claimed to have been held hostage and found a young woman from Bangalore living there. Investigations revealed the techie had planned to marry the woman, who he had met through a social networking site, against his father’s wishes and had staged the kidnapping to extract money from him.
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“My father would never have agreed to my choice of a partner,” he is reported to have told the police.
Following a stern warning from the city police, the youth was let off. The woman, meanwhile, left to Bangalore, the police said.