B'luru: Gang kidnaps college student over financial dispute with his father, arrested within hours

Yelahanka and Chitradurga police, in a joint operation, tracked and arrested the abductors of a 19-year-old youth within three hours of the kidnapping incident.

The four arrested have been identified as Ramesh Rathod, 43, Rizwan Patel, 23, Indrajit Pawar, 23, and Harish Kumar, 24, all residents of Kalaburagi district.

On June 18 afternoon, the victim Jagadeesh, a first-year BBA student was headed to his flat from college when the abductors intercepted his bike and forcefully dragged him into their Innova car. A classmate of Jagadeesh who noticed the incident wrote down the car’s registration number and informed Jagadeesh’s roommate, who then filed a complaint with the police.

The police swung into action and collected the FASTag details of the vehicle and began tracking it. As the car was moving towards Tumakuru, Yelahanka police contacted the Chitradurga police to nab the abductors.

Upon realizing that the police were trailing them, the abductors dropped Jagadeesh near Sira and headed towards Kalaburagi. They were held by the police at Aimangala near Hiriyur and two SUVs used in the act were seized.

As per the police the abduction took place over a financial dispute between Rathod, a toor dal trader and Jagadeesh’s father Suresh. Investigations revealed that Suresh and his brother had defaulted on a payment of about Rs 3 crore to Rathod after procuring toor dal from him.

Rathod filed a cheating complaint against the brothers in Kalaburagi when his efforts to recover dues from them went in vain. When Suresh refused to settle the dues, Rathod planned the abduction to recover his money.