Five held for abducting youth

KOLKATA: Five persons were arrested for kidnapping the son of a south Kolkata-based tradercar rental service. The abducted youth was released after his father paid a ransom.
Nearly a month ago, Arunava Roy, owner of a car-rental agency, received a call from a person wanting to hire a car. Arunava likewise sent his son Anindya with an SUV. It was then that a group of five persons overpowered him.Next day, they demanded a ransom of Rs 23 lakh and released Anindya on payment of Rs 3 lakh by Arunava. The car too was found the next morning from Sonarpur.
While two persons got onto the car in Sonarpur, the two other boarded the car at EM Bypass. Soon a motorcycle intercepted them and all the five persons overpowered Anindya. Next day, Arunava received a call demanding a ransom of Rs 23 lakh. Later the amount was scaled down to Rs 3 lakh and Anindya was released on making the payment.
Nearly a month ago, south Kolkata based trader Arunava Roy Chowdhury received a call that a person need to hire a car. Arunava sent his son Anindya with an SUV. Two persons boarded in the car from Sonarpur and then they told Anindya that they would pick up some other persons from Sonarpur and would drop them to Kultali in South 24-Parganas.
Accordingly Anindya drove to Airport where two more persons boarded including a woman and when the car was passing through EM Bypass, a motorbike intercepted the car. One youth from the motorcycle barged in and with the help of other passengers of the car, he overpowered him. The youth claimed that days before a car belong to Anindya's father injured a person and demanded money from Anindya.
However Anindya was removed from the driving seat and the car straight headed towards Baruipur and then to Kultali. A day after, Anindya's father had started getting ransom call. Initially the abductors demanded Rs 25 lakh but finally they scaled down to Rs 3 lakh. On the same evening Arunava paid the amount at Sonarpur area and in the wee hours the abductors released Anindya. On next morning the car was also found at Sonarpur area.
A case was registered at Patuli police station. During the probe police zeroed in on Sukumar Haldar, one of Arunava's drivers, who confessed to the crime. the anti-rowdy squad of Detective department tracked some calls at Kultali. Probe also revealed that Sukumar Haldar, one of the drivers of Anindya's car rental service is originally from Kultali but stays at Sonarpur.
During interrogation Sukumar broke down and confessed that he hatched the plot of abduction with Hatim Ali Laskar of Kultali and trapped Anindya. Hatim ganged up with Razzaque Seikh Rehan Mollah and Milan Mondal of Joynagar. All of them have criminal antecedence. Rehan was the youth who intercepted the car on EM Bypass with a motorcycle. Police claimed that a woman was also in the group. Police are now looking for the sixth member of the gang.
"We are trying to recover the ransom amount," said Joint CP (crime) Damayanti Sen.