Man, 2 students held for extorting, kidnapping gas delivery person
The MIDC police have identified the three accused as Rehan Shaikh, 18, Rupesh Yadav, 20, Aamir Mirza, 23, all residents of Powai.
Three men who had earlier extorted a 35-year-old gas cylinder delivery person kidnapped him on Friday and demanded a ₹2 lakh ransom from his brother. The trio were caught and arrested when the victim’s brother immediately alerted the MIDC police, who then tracked them down.
The MIDC police have identified the three accused as Rehan Shaikh, 18, Rupesh Yadav, 20, Aamir Mirza, 23, all residents of Powai, of whom Shaikh and Yadav are still students at a college in Andheri, the police added. The police said that the accused took the victim, Hadmanaram Bishnoi, who worked as a delivery agent for the Anjali gas service agency in Andheri East, to an isolated spot in Aarey Colony. They threatened to report him for allegedly stealing gas from the cylinders if his family did not pay a ransom of ₹2 lakh.
Bishnoi, a resident of Adarsh Nagar, Andheri East, first met his kidnappers on August 26, when they accosted him near Uttam Dhaba in Andheri. Then too they had threatened to complain that he was stealing gas cylinders and taken him to the Aarey Colony picnic point. At the time they made him transfer ₹83,000 from his bank account, extorted ₹12,000 cash, and let him go only after he had called a friend who sent them an additional ₹50,000.
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“On the morning of October 31, while he was near the Holy Family School the same people came to him again. They began shouting at him and when people gathered around them they began claiming that Bishnoi had stolen gas cylinders,” said a police officer.
According to the police the accused then took him to Filterpada, Aarey Colony road, Andheri East. “They took the ₹1,300 cash in his pocket and demanded ₹2 lakh to release him,” said the police officer, adding that the accused asked him to call his brother Sagar Bishnoi and other friends to arrange the cash.
Sagar however immediately approached the MIDC police and soon the three accused were chased and arrested as they tried to flee the police. “We have booked them under sections 137 (kidnapping), 308 (extortion) and 351 (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,” said the police officer.
