Pimpri: Landowner Kidnapped for Rs 1 Crore Ransom Rescued from Island on Jharkhand-West Bengal Border; Three Arrested

Pune / Pimpri :

In a shocking incident, a landowner was kidnapped by a few individuals and kept on an island in the river Ganga on the Jharkhand and West Bengal border for a ransom of Rs 1 crore. The team of Pimpri Chinchwad Police’s Crime Branch rescued the abducted individual by raiding Gol Dhab Island, where the landowner was kidnapped by the accused. In this case, police have arrested two kidnappers and one person from Kalyan.

The arrested individuals have been identified as Naseem Manirul Haque Akhtar (age 20, a resident of Dharampur, Tin Muhani, Muthabadi, District Malda, West Bengal), Lallu Rustom Sheikh (age 45, a resident of Amanat Diara, Radhanagar, District Sahebganj, Jharkhand), and Sajeem Karim Bablu Sheikh (age 20, a resident of Chhakkutola, Taluka Mothalwadi, District Malda, West Bengal).

On October 18, the son of the abducted landowner met the officials of the Anti-Extortion Cell and informed them about the sudden disappearance of his father from October 17. He further informed the police that he received a phone call from his father’s mobile number where few individuals demanded Rs 1 crore from him and threatened to kill his father if he tried to contact the police.

Realising the seriousness of this incident, the police registered a case at Hinjewadi police station and immediately started an investigation into the case.

During the investigation, police learnt that a coconut water seller took the abductees to Kolkata by aeroplane. Accordingly, police collected information of the passengers of the Kolkata-bound flight at the Pune airport, checked the CCTV cameras, and obtained the information of the suspects. Further, constable Sunil Kangude and Nagesh Mali also managed to obtain the mobile numbers of the suspects through technical analysis. Meanwhile, Crime Branch Police Sub-Inspector Sunil Bhadane, Ashok Jagtap, Police Ammaldar Pradeep Godambe, Mangesh Jadhav, and Ramdas Mohite left for Jharkhand and West Bengal to lookout for the abductees.

During this, the accused were constantly calling the plaintiff and asking him to deposit the required money at the earliest. Since the plaintiff was continuously getting calls for ransom money, Police Commissioner Vinay Kumar Choubey contacted the Superintendent of Police of Malda in West Bengal and the Superintendent of Police of Sahibganj in Jharkhand and informed them about these crimes. Choubey also requested them to assist in the investigation.

After that, a team of crime branch and the sub-divisional police officers from Rajmahal in Jharkhand were tracking the accused in the darkness of night from Palachgachi Pranpur, Banutola, and Gol Dhab valley by travelling through the river Ganga by boat and on foot through the mud. A landowner who was abducted was rescued safely around 5 a.m. after raiding Gol Dhab Island in the Ganga river basin. Naseem and Lallu were detained from there. 3 mobile phones were seized from them. Their 3 accomplices managed to escape by jumping into the river Ganga.

On getting reliable information that one of the accused’s accomplices was in Kalyan, Crime Branch Assistant Police Officer Ramesh Gaikwad, Police Constable Gawande, and Rane went to Kalyan. They arrested Sajeem Sheikh along with his two mobiles. Further, the names of three other accused who fled by jumping into the river Ganga have also been revealed by the police. The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Sandeep Doifode, informed that the identity of the accused coconut water seller who took the abductees to Kolkata has not yet been identified.

This action was taken by the team of Senior Police Inspector of Anti-Extortion and Industrial Grievance Redressal Cell Devendra Chavan, Senior Police Inspector of Unit 4 Sandeep Sawant, Sub-Inspector of Police Anti-Extortion Cell Sunil Bhadane, Assistant Faujdar Ramesh Gaikwad, Police Ammaldar Sunil Kangude, Kiran Katkar, Pradeep Godambe, Kishor Kamble, Mangesh Jadhav, Ashish Botke, Bhupendra Choudhari, Police Sub-Inspector Ashok Jagtap, Ramdas Mohite, Unit 4 Police Constable Prashant Said, Sukhdev Gawande, and Amar Rane, and Technical Analysis Division Police Ammaldar Nagesh Mali and Popat Hulge.

In this action, the guidance of Commissioner of Police Vinay Kumar Choubey, Joint Commissioner of Police Dr. Shashikant Mahavarkar, Additional Commissioner of Police Vasant Pardeshi, Deputy Commissioner of Police Sandeep Doifode, Assistant Commissioner of Police Dr. Vishal Hire, and Balasaheb Kopnar also proved useful.