Doc detained for faking own kidnap; to extort Rs 15 L from father

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Kirit Shah, the father of the accused, had approached the Khokhra Police Station Wednesday afternoon about getting calls demanding ransom to release his son.

“As per the complainant, his son Dr Sanket had left for office around 9:45 am on Wednesday and around 11:15 am, he received a call from Sanket’s phone where he heard him yelling ‘Hello Hello’. A few minutes later, he received another call from Sanket’s phone where an unknown man in Hindi said his son was in custody.

Later, a demand of Rs 15 lakh was made through a text message warning Kirit to not inform police. Then through several calls, all made from Sanket’s phone, the caller demanded Rs 15 lakh cash to be dropped at Science City gate around 4:15 pm. Meanwhile, teams of DCB were working on the case and using technical analysis, we picked up Dr Sanket from a location in South Bopal,” said a senior police official of Ahmedabad DCB.

Police informed that Sanket had allegedly owed his friends Rs 26.5 lakh after losing money in online gambling.

“Back in 2017, when Dr Shah was pursuing his ophthalmologist degree in Bengaluru, he got addicted to a gaming application ‘pokerbaazi.com’ in which he used to deposit money to play rummy games online,” the official added. Sanket lost Rs 26.5 lakh in betting and owed his friends the amount.

He had also put his Nexon car as a deposit for his gambling session. “In 2021, he had intentionally struck his car in an accident in the Danilimda area and lied to his father that he had hit two men and they demanded Rs 12 lakh from him as compensation. His father had given him the money that he lost while playing another online gambling round. On Wednesday, Sanket left his residence claiming to be headed towards his hospital. He then travelled all over Ahmedabad in his car and kept making calls to his father demanding ransom for his son, by posing as an anonymous person,” said the official.