Two suspended Mumbai firefighters attempt to kidnap builder's son, fail

Two suspended Mumbai firefighters, along with eight others, kidnapped a builder's son for a ₹40 crore ransom but were caught by police during negotiations

THANE: Two firefighters of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation who were on suspension for duping people on the pretext of getting them jobs in the fire department decided to pull a mega con that would end all their financial and professional woes. On Tuesday, the two men along with eight others abducted the son of an Ambernath builder and demanded a ransom of ₹40- crore. Part of the ransom money, they reckoned, would allow them to pay off the men they had conned for jobs who would then revoke their complaints and the two firemen, Devidas Dattatraya Waghmare and Dattaray Namdev Pawar would get their jobs back as firemen. But as often happens with the best laid plans of mice and men, they ended up getting caught by the police.

A team of 100 police personnel was formed to track down the abductors and rescue Shelke’s son. (HT File)

On Tuesday, close to noon, the men followed the car of the 20-year-old son of Ambernath builder Sanjay Shelke and when it reached Katai Road at Ambernath they forcibly stopped his car and abducted him. One of the abductors then put a gun to his head and made him video call his father. On the call, the abductors told the builder they would kill his son if he did not pay them ₹40 crore. Five of the ten kidnappers then took the young man to the forested area in Padgha in another vehicle, while the two firemen stayed back in Ambernath to negotiate with the builder. The remaining three men in the gang were asked to keep an eye out for any police activity. Unknown to them, Shelke had called the police as soon as he received the ransom call.

Additional Commissioner of Police Sanjay Jadhav and Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone 4, Sudhakar Pathare, formed a team of 100 police personnel to track down the abductors and rescue Shelke’s son.

“As soon as the case was filed, 15 police officers and 80 policemen were deployed in plain clothes across eight investigation teams. The teams started with checking footage from 45 CCTV cameras around the crime scene and other parts of Ambernath. Technical analysis was conducted on the mobile numbers used by the kidnappers, revealing that the Ertiga car had a fake license plate,” said DCP Pathare.

The officer said that the kidnappers kept calling the victim’s father, initially demanding ₹40 crore which they brought down to ₹7 crore, before eventually agreeing to accept a sum of ₹2 crore. They instructed Shelke to book an Ola car, keep the money inside, and send the car number to them. To ensure the safety of the kidnapped son, the police and the victim’s family agreed to arrange the ₹2 crore as directed by the kidnappers.

When the kidnappers spotted police around the cab they began changing the destination location. Unbeknown to them, the police had also deployed several private vehicles to track the cash-carrying Ola.

Despite the challenges posed by heavy rain and frequent change of locations, the police stayed in hot pursuit. Eventually, sensing police presence, the abductors informed the victim’s father that his son would return home in the next half hour and disconnected the call.

“Once the kidnappers refused the ransom and fled, the seriousness of the situation escalated as we had to rescue the young man,” said one of the officers in the investigation team. The police conducted a technical analysis of the phone numbers used, tracked their locations near Pise Dam, Vaseregaon, Padgha and Bhiwandi. When the police reached the dam at Padgha they found the victim who had been abandoned by the abductors.

Subsequently, another team conducted a technical analysis of the suspects’ phones, which led them to one of the accused a certain Nikhil Rajusing Laban who had provided a SIM card to another accomplice, Vinay Raj Advani. After the arrest of these two men, the police got the contact of the remaining others and arrested them. A KIA car (MH02 FR 7047) which was used to transfer the victim has been recovered as also a country-made pistol with three rounds, an air pistol, a knife, a red nylon rope, black masks and five mobile phones.

The police said the main accused, Waghmare and Pawar, had previously collected ₹2.75 crore from job-seekers from different districts on the pretext of getting them a job in the fire department and a case against was already registered in Agripada police station. Both men, on suspension, were out on bail. They told the police they planned the kidnapping to return the money taken from the job aspirants they had duped, and in turn they would ask the candidates to withdraw the cases against them so they could get their jobs back.

The accused had known Shelke, builder, for ten years and decided to kidnap his son believing he would be an easy target. They kept a watch on the movements of the 20-year-old son of the builder for 15 days before carrying out the abduction.