The Sion police on Sunday successfully rescued a 47-year-old Telangana native who had allegedly been kidnapped from Mumbai and was being held hostage in Puducherry. The police are now looking for the two accused, who allegedly abducted the victim because he owed them money.
According to the Sion police, the victim, Shankar Mathmalla, was working in Dubai and landed in Mumbai on June 22. He was supposed to take a bus from Sion to his native Telengana but never got there. Subsequently, his son Harish reached Mumbai and made inquiries with the bus operator, who told him that Shankar had booked a ticket but subsequently cancelled it.
Even as Harish was trying to obtain any further clues about his father's whereabouts, Shankar called him on June 24 and said that he was in a hospital in Chennai. Shankar hung up before Harish could ask any more questions and Harish rushed to the Sion police station, where he registered a Missing Person's Report in his father's name.
"On June 28, Harish received several calls from an unknown number. The caller said that he had Shankar in his custody and demanded Rs 15 lakh in exchange for his release. Harish told us about this and we immediately registered a complaint of kidnapping against unidentified persons. We then started tracking the cellular location and also obtained other details about the number," an officer with the Sion police station said.
The officer added that while analysing the call detail records of the number from which the ransom call had come, the investigating team realised that the abductor had exchanged calls with Shankar several times in the past.
This led the police to believe that the kidnappers were known to him. Meanwhile, using the registration details of the number, the police identified the accused and sent a team to Puducherry, where the number's last location had been recorded in cellular location mapping.
Over several days of investigation in collaboration with the local police, the Sion police were able to identify some family members of the accused and started calling them up. Simultaneously, the police were also continuously tracking Shankar's cell phone and on Saturday, they suddenly got a hit on his location, which was near the Puducherry railway station.
"We rushed to the station and scoured the entire area till we found him. He was severely injured and we took him to a local hospital, after which we brought him back to Mumbai on Sunday. Prima facie, it seems that the accused panicked when we started contacting their family members and abandoned him at the railway station. Shankar has also mentioned that he owed money to the accused and we are working further on this angle," the officer said.
Senior police inspector Manoj Hirlekar confirmed that Shankar had been brought back safely to Mumbai.
"Shankar is now in the hospital receiving treatment for his injuries and we are yet to record a formal statement from him. Investigations are underway to trace and apprehend the accused," Hirlekar said.
