A Rs 15 lakh ransom call, withdrawal of money from various ATMs, and a similar incident being reported in the capital led to the rescue of a 35-year-old HCL executive and the arrest of three alleged abductors following an encounter in Ghaziabad late Thursday night, police said. On the night of May 23, Rajiv Kumar Singh (35) left his HCL office in Noida’s Sector 126. It was a day before his birthday and he was heading to his parents’ home in Haridwar. “Between 12 and 12.30 am, he was in a taxi which dropped him at Rajnagar Extension crossing. He was supposed to take a bus to Haridwar, but he never reached,” said Vaibhav Krishna, Ghaziabad Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP). When Singh did not turn up, his wife sent him a message. In less than an hour, she received a WhatsApp message from her husband’s number. “15 lakh. tumhara admi kidnap ho gaya hai. kal WhatsApp par baat karunga.” “The relatives approached police and we formed two teams, seeking help from other police teams, including Noida Special Task Force,” the SSP said. “We realised that a similar incident had taken place under the jurisdiction area of Mayur Vihar police station in Delhi. That case had not been solved but the kidnapped person had been released after the ransom was paid. We launched an informer network on the basis of this,” Krishna said. Meanwhile, Singh was kept hostage at a flat in Indirapuram for nearly 10 days. “Blindfolded, limbs tied, the engineer was kept under a table, covered with mattresses and clothes. He was forced to drink a solution laced with sedatives,” said Krishna. The alleged abductors used his ATM cards to withdraw cash from different locations and, since May 23, they had withdrawn around Rs 1,40,000, police said. Around 10.30 pm on Thursday, two of the three abductors had gone to an ATM in Modi Nagar when police raided the flat. “One of the three accused was in the flat and he told us that other two were in Mohan Nagar. We reached and their car was identified by our informer. They eventually got out of the car and opened fire on police. The accused as well as two policemen were injured,” Krishna said. The accused were identified as Mahesh Mishra, Sharad Sharma and Rinku. “So far, we have found around 10 cases against them,” said the SSP.
