Kozhikode
In a dramatic event, a group of people, suspected to be part of a gold smuggling racket, kidnapped a man by laying siege on his vehicle as he was travelling towards Wayanad from the Calicut International Airport. However, he was released later.
The incident took place at the second hairpin bend on the Thamarassery Ghat Road at midnight on Saturday. The Kunnamangalam native had landed in Kozhikode from Dubai on Saturday evening and got into a waiting vehicle. The assailants had blocked the road using their vehicle on the Ghat Road and had caused damage to the vehicle that the kidnapped man was travelling in.
The people, who accompanied him, escaped into the forest. The police started investigating the case based on the accounts of other travellers on the route and CCTV visuals. They had tracked two of the persons who ran away into the forest and had tracked the vehicle used by the assailants. But since the kidnapped person reported at the station the next day and in the absence of a formal complaint, the case was dropped.
