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Journalism of Courage
Two techies were on Wednesday arrested for kidnapping a Chennai businessmans son for ransom. The duo,both in their twenties,had abducted the teenaged boy on Monday and released him the next day after the family paid ransom,police said.
One of the accused,Vijay,26,had finished engineering from a city college before pursuing his masters in management in the UK last year. His alleged accomplice,Prabhu,29,is a technical graduate and was working in Singapore. The nearly Rs 1 crore ransom was recovered from them. Polices decision to let the family pay ransom had led to criticism and questions were raised about the efficiency of the force,but officials said the payment was part of a strategy.
Our first priority was to save the child,especially after the kidnap and murder of two children in Coimbatore. Hence,even when we had the gang within our reach,we restrained the officials till the child was brought back safely, Chennai Police commissioner T Rajendran said.
Keerthivasan,14,son of businessman Ramesh,was abducted when the family driver was driving him back from school. The duo hijacked the car at a traffic signal,threw the driver out and sped away.
Ramesh had reportedly received a warning a few months ago about which he gave an oral complaint,and had engaged private securitymen to escort his two children. But on the day Keerthivasan was kidnapped,they were assigned other chores,police said.
Police tracked the mobile phone the gang used to negotiate the ransom amount with the family to zero in on them.
Police said one of the accused got information about the businessman from a relative who worked as a manager with Ramesh. The manager did not have any role in the whole drama,officials said.
