Sec 38 kidnapping: 17-year-old rescued, 3 arrested
The trio has been remanded to three-day police custody.
The three accused at the crime branch office in Chandigarh on Tuesday. (Kshitij Mohan)
The Chandigarh Police on Tuesday rescued 17-year-old Karan, who had been kidnapped on January 18, and arrested three of his abductors. Karan was kidnapped by seven people — who allegedly had a financial dispute with his elder sister, Monika — from his house in Sector 38.
While four accused are on the run, kingpin Sukhwinder Singh alias Billa, Sukhdev Singh alias Daba and Prabhjot Singh — all residents of Amritsar — were nabbed in a joint operation between the crime branch and police at the station in Sector 39. They have been remanded to three-day police custody.
While Sukhwinder and Sukhdev were arrested from a village near Ambala in early hours of Tuesday by a team headed by DSP (south) Surjit Singh Mailk and SHO, Police Station Sector 34, Inspector Rajesh Shukla, Prabhjot was arrested in Amritsar by a Crime Branch team headed by DSP Satbir Singh.
Complainant Monika had claimed that the immigration firm ‘Global Link Study Emigration’, based in Sector 9, Chandigarh, was owned by kingpin Sukhwinder Singh. “I used to work for him. The firm closed some time back and since then he has been asking me to give him Rs 13 lakh. I have the passport of a person which I had promised to return. Sukhwinder along with the others came to meet me on Friday and threatened me with dire consequences if I did not return the money and the passport,” she had said.
Monika had named Ramnish, Harvinder and Sukhwinder, residents of Amritsar in the FIR. The complainant said that on Saturday, when she was on her way to Pagdana town in Haryana, her domestic help called and told her that Karan had been kidnapped.
She received a ransom call for Rs 25 lakh on Saturday. It was made from Karan’s mobile.Police tracked the mobile phone to Ambala district. While tracing out the exact location of the accused, the phone on surveillance was constantly on move. Video footage from CCTV cameras at the Dappar Toll Tax Barrier helped police identify the cars the accused were using.
It was established that one of the cars belonged to accused Sukhwinder Singh and the other was on the name of Prabhjot Singh.
They were recovered by Chandigarh Police. Meanwhile, Monika and her parents negotiated the ransom amount and the deal was fixed on an Etios car; Rs 2 lakh; 10 kilograms of silver and five blank signed cheques. The kidnappers had asked set the ransom delivery at Amritsar and a police team was sent there.
“Keeping in view the safety of the victim, his parents decided to hand over the demanded items to the kidnappers at Amritsar”, SSP Dr Sukhchain Singh Gill said during a press conference. The car and valuables have also been recovered.
Police also seized a country-made pistol, five live cartridges along with five mobile phones, including Karan’s phone which was used to make the ransom calls. Police said Sukwinder Singh is a Proclaimed offender (PO) with five criminals case pending against him including for murder, attempt to murder and possession of fake currency.
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