A man and his relative have been arrested on charges of kidnapping ten-year-old twin boys from Manish Nagar in Andheri (W) when they had gone for their tennis class on Monday.
While the boys were rescued from the clutches of their kidnappers within an hour, it was only revealed after 18 hours of investigation that their driver had orchestrated the entire facade of kidnapping along with his brother-in-law for Rs 1-crore ransom from his employers. Police arrested the accused on kidnapping charges.
The twins attended their tennis class in Andheri (W) thrice a week and were escorted by their driver. As usual, when the driver was taking them back home at around 6.30pm on Monday, an unknown man entered their car forcibly and asked the driver to take the vehicle near Juhu PVR on knifepoint, where the twins and the driver were asked to eat a medicine after which they fell unconscious.
The unknown accused then tied the twins' hands and legs, and they were then separated near Croma store. The driver and one of the twins were shifted to a school bus and the other twin was kept in the car.
The driver claimed that six men came on three motorcycles and took him from Juhu Versova Road, where he was badly beaten up to keep his mouth shut about the incident. After 18 hours of sustained interrogation, the driver confessed that he had orchestrated the entire incident with the help of his 24-year-old brother-in-law who was called from Delhi for this act last week.
"The driver said that he was in need of money for his daughter's wedding and since his employer was rich, he hatched a plan to make quick bucks through kidnapping. The accused also confessed that he had backed out of the plan as he was scared of being caught," said Bharat Gaikwad, senior inspector of DN Nagar police station.
The brother-in-law had also made an international call demanding ransom through a mobile application facilitating Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) calls to the twins' mother. The driver had already shown the car, the route and the twins to his brother-in-law, who had done a perfect recce for eight days before striking and had promised half the ransom to his kin. Subsequently, police arrested the driver and his brother-in-law for kidnapping charges. Both of them were produced in a local magistrate court and remanded in police custody till February 1.
0000
