4 kidnap teenager over mobile phone dispute

The Malwani police on Wednesday arrested four men, who had abducted a 19-year-old from Malad West over a mobile phone dispute

MUMBAI: The Malwani police on Wednesday arrested four men, who had abducted a 19-year-old from Malad West over a mobile phone dispute and demanded a ransom of ₹33,000 from his aunt.

ASI Harbhol Singh, who is investigating the case, said an FIR under Sections 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt to another person), 191(3) (rioting, being armed with a deadly weapon),190 (if a crime is committed by a member of an unlawful assembly, then every member of the assembly is guilty of that crime) and 351(2) (Criminal intimidation) of the BNS has been lodged against the accused. (HT Photo)

According to police, on Tuesday evening, a 53-year-old woman, identified as Kalimunisa Khan, approached the police claiming that her nephew, Amanulla Ansari, was abducted by four unidentified men, who had locked him up inside a tempo. She said that the kidnappers had called her, demanding that she pay ₹33,000 through online payment mode and threatened to kill Ansari if she failed to do so.

Panicking, Khan approached the Malvani police and got a case of kidnapping registered against four men, who, allegedly, pushed Ansari into a tempo at Gate Number 6 in Malwani and drove away.

Tracking the phone call made to Khan, a police team under Shailendra Nagarkar, senior police inspector of Malvani police station, arrested Abhishek Singh, Ajay Pandey, Pradeep Singh and Anwar Khan from the Ram Mandir area of Goregaon, where they had parked the tempo, and rescued Ansari from their custody.

Ansari told police that he had an argument with the four men, who were known to him, over the money paid for a mobile phone. The four men, who are residents of Kandivali, told police that Ansari had taken ₹33,000 from them, promising a mobile phone but did not deliver it.

On Tuesday evening, the men met the 19-year-old and confronted him about the phone and demanded their money back. The argument escalated, turning violent, as the four assaulted Ansari and abducted him to get their money back from his family.

Senior police inspector Shailendra Nagarkar said that as soon as the FIR was registered, they traced the mobile phone location and the tempo number plate, and rescued Ansari. “The accused were produced before the court on Wednesday, and all were remanded in police custody till Monday,” he said.