KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, May 30: A gang of eight criminals had abducted the owner of a Telco-based restaurant from the Golmuri area on Friday and released him only after extorting a Rs 14 lakh ransom.
The matter came to the limelight after the victim, Akaash Kumar Sinha, lodged an FIR with the Golmuri thana on Sunday night only.
Sinha (40) who is a resident of Radhika Nagar in Telco delayed in lodging the FIR as he had to undergo trauma during his captivity suspected somewhere in Adityapur.
According to the FIR, Sinha who is the owner of Sky High restaurant located near Bhubaneswari temple was riding back home from the DTO, Jamshedpur office in Bistupur at about 12.30 pm when he was intercepted by the criminals on a secluded road behind the Golmuri golf ground on May 27.
The abductors were in two SUVs and had introduced themselves as policemen whipping abducting him. Having kidnapped him, the criminals had demanded to pay Rs 60 lakhs for his safe release.
A perplexed Sinha had subsequently contacted his family members and arranged money for his release, keeping the matter undercover. The family members, however, succeeded to arrange Rs 14 lakhs from their friends and relatives and paid it to the criminals the same night. On May 28 morning, Sinha was dropped at a place in the Sidhgora locality of the city.
The OC of Golmuri thana Arvind Kumar said the police are clueless about those involved in the abduction but said they would solve the case soon.
“We wanted to crack the case on the basis of CCTV camera footage, but there was no surveillance camera installed near the scene of the abduction. It appears that the criminals were following the movement of the restaurant owner closely and abducted him at a place where there is no CCTV camera around, ” said the OC, Arvind Kumar.
The OC pointed out that had the victim’s family informed the police in time, then perhaps they would have been able to detect the case easily, but family members were frightened as there was his life risk involved.
The police officer pointed out that the road behind the golf ground was the victim’s usual route that he would follow regularly, but they (the police) had hardly imagined that anyone could be abducted through the said road and that too in broad daylight.
