Bengaluru: Kidnappers caught after high drama, shootout

Bengaluru: Nearly 25 days after a teenager and a driver were kidnapped by a gang for ransom, the Bengaluru district police fired at three abductors, arrested them and rescued the victims on Tuesday.

The police first caught one of the gang members who had come to collect the ransom amount of Rs 3 crore from the teenager’s family on Kanakpura Road. The abductors had called the teenager’s father, a businessman, demanding the whopping ransom to free the Class 12 student at a private college in RT Nagar.

The kidnapper, Naveen (24), came to collect the money around 4 am on Tuesday without knowing that it was a trap laid by the police. The teenager’s family, on the advice of the police, had taken the money to the spot and the police were behind them. As soon as Naveen came to collect the money at the Nice Road junction, the police swooped down on him. But he attacked Sub-Inspector Hemanth Kumar with a dagger and the police officer pulled out his gun and shot at Naveen in the arm before arresting him.

During the interrogation, he revealed that two others, Prashanth (25) and Tangabal (25), were part of the kidnapping gang and gave the address of the spot where the victims were kept. A police team went to Janapriya Township on the outskirts of the city to arrest the two.

As the police team approached them, the two threatened to kill the teenager and the driver. They also attacked the policemen with sharp-edged weapons to evade the arrest. The police opened fire at them and arrested them.

The police suspect that more people were part of the gang and are continuing the investigation.

The Kidnapping

On the morning of August 26, the teenager, son of businessman M. Siddaraju, as usual left home for college in the family car, driven by their driver Keshav Reddy. But till late in the evening that day, the two did not return home, worrying the family. Siddaraju called the driver Keshav’s mobile phone, but it was switched off. Then he called the son’s phone, but that too was not on.Fearing the worst, Siddaraju rushed to the Rajanukunte police and filed a kidnapping complaint. The police formed teams to track the abductors and then patiently waited for the gang to call the family for ransom. The call did come on Siddaraju’s mobile phone the next day andthe abductors demanded ` 3 crore. Over the next 20 days, the family received a number of calls. On the advice of the police, he told the abductors that he was willing to pay the ransom. The date was set and the abductors called the victim's family around 4 am on Tuesday and gave them instructions to hand over the cash. The police was behind the victim’s family and after a high drama, caught hold of Naveen, unspooling a series of events leading to the freeing of the teenager and driver.“We suspect that more people are involved in the kidnapping. We are also probing the possible role of the driver, Keshav Reddy," Inspector-General of Central Range K.V. Sharath Chandra said.