Bengaluru: Five held on charges of abduction of techie

Bengaluru: Police officials have arrested a gang of five for allegedly kidnapping a software engineer from Bengaluru and holding him captive for over a month in Chennai.

It is said that he was kidnapped in an effort to force him to sell his ancestral property worth Rs 50 crore in Adambakkam. The gang demanded ransom of Rs 10 crore from his family.

The arrested accused have been identified as Balaji(43) of Saligramam, Selva alias Speed Selva(49) of Pallikaranai, Tirumurugan(23) of Madurai, Johnson(45) of Kodambakkam and Suresh(21) of Alwarthirunagar.  A car, nine mobile phones, and a knife was seized from the accused.

The victim Thulasivamsi Krishna, 37, a software professional living in Bengaluru, had visited Chennai to sell his ancestral property measuring 40,497 square feet.

There he met a real estate agent named Balaji alias Balamurugan, who promised to help him sell his house. Citing several defects with the property, Balaji had asked Krishna to provide him with a power of attorney. However, Balaji was unable to register the document due to some errors in it.

On September 18, Balaji invited Krishna to come to a location where they claimed to have a potential buyer and kidnapped him. For more than a month, he was detained at a city lodge.

Krishna’s mother, Roopa, lodged a complaint with the Joint Commissioner of Police (South) on October 23. The  gang was arrested from a lodge in Arcot Salai.