Kidnap exposes fake currency racket

MADURAI: Even as a police team launched a hunt for the mastermind in the kidnap of a clerk in a cooperative society in Madurai, inquiries revealed that the four kidnappers nabbed by the police, as well as the clerk were part of a counterfeit currency gang.
Inquiries have also revealed that one of the arrested accused had links with forest brigand Veerappan and was also detained under the National Security Act for smuggling weapons to the LTTE.Sivaganga SP, R Sakthivel said the clerk M Rajendran, 40, from Arasampatti village in Madurai had received Rs 6 lakh from Kumar of Bose Nagar in Pudukkottai. A dispute arose between the two after Rajendran failed to return the money and subsequently Kumar hatched a plan to kidnap him. But now, it has emerged that it was a money doubling racket and that Rajendran had allegedly promised to return double the amount to Kumar.
"We have sent a team to nab Kumar. Kumar and Rajendran know each other for a long time. We suspect that they are associates in a money doubling racket,'' said an investigating officer.
On Friday evening, a five-member gang kidnapped Rajendran at gunpoint from Tiruparankunram in a car. When public rushed to the rescue of the man, the gangsters claimed they were police and brandished a gun to keep the public away. But people informed Madurai police and SP V Balakrishnan alerted Sivaganga police suspecting that the car was speeding in that direction.
A police team at Poovandhi check-post spotted the car and signalled it to stop. But the driver ignored the warning and sped past. Around 6.30 pm, another police team led by Manadurai DSP S Velladurai spotted the car near Pachery village near Tirupachethi and intercepted it. Immediately, one of them, N Sathyamurthy started firing in the air to threaten the police. He fired two rounds, but the revolver got stuck. They tried to flee, leaving the car behind, but police nabbed them after a chase. But one of them, identified as Gandhi managed to escape. Rajendran was rescued from the car.
Kumar was pestering Rajendran to return the money and since he kept dodging, the kidnap plan was hatched, police said.
The four accused Sathyamurthy, P Saravanan, 26, R Maharajan, 30 and K Prabakaran, 41, all from Pudukkottai were produced in Ilayankudi judicial magistrate court and remanded in 15 days judicial custody.