Faizabad MP Awadesh Prasad’s son, others booked for ‘kidnapping, assaulting’ trader

The complainant, Ravi Kumar Tiwari, alleged that he was kidnapped and then assaulted inside a car by the accused on Saturday afternoon.

An FIR was lodged under Sections 140 (3) (kidnapping or abducting to secretly and wrongfully confine a person), 115 (voluntarily causing hurt), 191 (3) (rioting with deadly weapons) and 351 (3) (criminal intimidation by trying to cause death or grievous hurt, or to cause the destruction of property) of the BNS at Kotwali Nagar police station against Ajit Prasad, Raju Yadav, Shashi Kant Rai, and an unidentified person.

Ayodhya Additional SP Madhuvan Kumar Singh said that CCTV footage was reviewed. The footage shows the victim being taken into a vehicle, an official said.

When contacted, Tiwari said he had paid a token amount of `1 lakh to Sheetla Prasad of Akwara village for a parcel of land. But he dropped the plan due to some financial issues and asked Prasad to sell it to someone else, he claimed.

Sheetla Prasad then sold it to Ajit Prasad and Lal Bahadur (43), with Ravi acting as a middleman, it was claimed. “Lal Bahadur gave me a cheque of `1 lakh, thus reimbursing the token money I had paid to Prasad. I later encashed the cheque. On Saturday afternoon, when I was standing with my friend in the Civil Lines area, Ajit Prasad and others arrived in five vehicles. Before I could react, Ajit dragged me into one of the cars,” the complainant alleged.

One of the accused, Shashi Kant Rai, is a police constable, he said. Ajit allegedly threatened him at gunpoint while his associates beat him up, Tiwari claimed.

Inside the car, the accused made a video of him promising to return the money, he said, adding they stopped the vehicle near the tehsil office and released him.

No one has been arrested so far, a police officer said.

MP Awadhesh Prasad said, “This case is politically motivated. After I vacated the Milkipur Assembly seat for LS polls and got elected, our leader Akhilesh Yadav declared my son as the candidate from Milkipur. The BJP is scared of losing.”