Man ‘kidnaps’ self to clear debt

The 27-year-old man had not been paying the monthly instalments due to which he had accumulated debt and was receiving threatening calls from loan recovery agents, which is what led him to plot the ‘kidnapping’

MUMBAI: Following threatening calls from loan recovery agents, a man allegedly staged his own kidnapping and tried to extort ₹5 lakh from his parents. The man, identified as Jitendra Joshi, 27, was tracked with the help of his mobile location and arrested on Wednesday.

Man ‘kidnaps’ self to clear debt

Joshi, who worked as a manager in a supermarket on Link Road in Goregaon West, used to buy electronics on loan from a finance company and sell the products, pocketing the cash, police said. He had not been paying the monthly instalments due to which he had accumulated debt and was receiving threatening calls from loan recovery agents, which is what led him to plot the ‘kidnapping’.

According to the police, Joshi, who lives in Dahisar, was last seen exiting his workplace on Monday evening. When he did not reach home at his usual time, his father Dinesh, who owns a dairy, called Joshi on his mobile phone, but no one answered.

At 7 pm, Joshi’s wife received a call from her husband’s number. The caller told Joshi’s wife that her husband was kidnapped and that he would return him only if the family paid ₹5 lakh as ransom. The caller also sent Joshi’s video in captivity.

Scared for their son’s life, who had just been married in January, Joshi’s parents approached the Bangur Nagar police at 11.30pm on Monday and lodged a kidnapping case.

“We scanned CCTV footage of the area and found Joshi leaving with a friend from his workplace,” a police officer said. “We checked footage of over 100 CCTV cameras till Dahisar,” Ajay Bansal, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 11, said.

The police then zeroed in on one of Joshi’s acquaintances. On questioning him, the police found that Joshi had planned his own kidnapping and asked his friend to help him make the video and the ransom call to his wife.

The police officers then traced Joshi’s mobile location and asked the friend to call him to Bangur Nagar near his workplace for a chat. Joshi was arrested when he came to meet his friend on Wednesday.