Kidnappers bought fake police uniforms, wireless
NEW DELHI: Fourmen,whowere arrested for kidnapping the 20-year old son of a former municipal councillor, said they were planning the crime for the past six months and did three rehearsals.
The four accused -- Anand, Vichitra Vir, Vikrant Shokeen and Vinod -- told police that used to follow councillor Shambu Dayal Sharma’s son from his house to his college. They told the police that at one point they thought of dropping the plan.
“They wanted to become rich overnight,” said Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police (crime).
Yadav said that a dozen men were involved in the kidnapping. Police are still looking for eight others, including the key conspirators, Mahesh and Manjeet Dabas. The police are also yet to recover R1 crore that Sharma had paid for the release of his son. Dabas is an ex-Delhi home guard jawan.
Police said the accused used to take protection money from toll booth operators in outer Delhi and parts of Haryana. Police said the accused were following the victim for the past six months, monitoring his movements. “They thought, it would be the safest way to kidnap him by posing as cops. They bought two police uniforms from a shop in north Delhi and arranged a fake wireless set and traffic challan machine. They bought SIM cards on forged documents to use them for making ransom calls. Tranquilisers were also arranged to control the victim, if he resists,” said an investigator.
They frequently shifted the hostage to different locations in Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan. They only used the youth’s mobile phone to call his family and demand the ransom amount.
They thought they would be able to eke out more ransom out of the victim’s family, if they get a middleman to negotiate with them.
“They initially had only one middleman but later ended up having three to four such negotiators,” said the officer.
During the telephonic conversations, Sharma identified one of the negotiators as Chanchal who had worked with him in the real estate business.
“I did not know who the kidnappers were till I learnt about the involvement of Chanchal,” Sharma said.