Six held for kidnapping, extorting money from youth

Police officials associated with the investigation said that the arrests were made in connection with the kidnapping of a youth, Vikram Kumar, a resident of Bakal village of Kaithal district

: The Kaithal police claimed to have busted an extortion gang with the arrest of six persons, who allegedly lured youths by promising help in getting visa to go abroad and later extorting money by holding them captive.

Six held for kidnapping, extorting money from youth

The accused have been identified as Abdul Karim Rehman alias Desai, Akhilesh, and Gurdev Singh of Uttar Pradesh, Shashank, Moin Kureshi and Sameer of Mumbai.

Kaithal superintendent of police (SP) Maqsood Ahmed said that the accused were produced in the court. Gurdev and Akhilesh were sent to judicial custody, while the remaining four were taken on ten-day police remand.

Police officials associated with the investigation said that the arrests were made in connection with the kidnapping of a youth, Vikram Kumar, a resident of Bakal village of Kaithal district.

Kumar’s family members told police that the accused had promised him Canadian visa and he was asked to accompany them to Mumbai on October 28 for getting the visa and ticket, but instead they took him to Kolkata where he was held captive in a hotel and later at an isolated place.

On getting suspicious, his family members informed police, following which

police arrested travel agent Gurdev, who revealed the name of other gang members. The police later arrested them from Mumbai. Kumar was united with his family.

The SP said that during further investigation, it was found that the accused used to run an organised gang which had kidnapped some other people also on the same pretext and released them after snatching dollars from them and extorting money from their family members and used to board the victims on a plane to Delhi from Kolkata.

He said that the police were also suspecting involvement of more travel agents in the gang.