Engineer fakes abduction with help of four friends to extort ₹50 lakh from parents; held

Gaur, along with his neighbourhood friend, had made a plan to fake his abduction and extort money from his parents, who run a cable business in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh

A 27-year-old multinational company employee from Noida was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly faking his abduction and demanding a ransom of ₹50 lakh from his parents, police said on Tuesday, adding that his army friend and another friend were also arrested for aiding him in the alleged crime.

Investigation revealed that he was involved in operating dating and betting applications. But he was unable to meet his expenses as his salary was only ₹25,000. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

Police said suspect Shubham Gaur, who hails from Gwalior and resides in Noida’s Sector 134, concocted the abduction story with the help of four friends, including two arrested men, to extort money from his parents as he was unable to meet his expenses. He joined the MNC around three months ago, police said.

Noida, additional commissioner of police, Manish Kumar Mishra, said, “Gaur’s two arrested friends were identified as Sandeep Kumar and Ankit Singh, both aged around 30 years and hailing from Mahindergarh in Haryana. Gaur is MTech qualified, while Kumar is unemployed, and Singh is in the army.”

“Gaur, along with his neighbourhood friend Uddho, had made a plan to fake his abduction and extort money from his parents, who run a cable business in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. It was also revealed that his parents rarely gave him money, and he did not have cordial relations with them,” said Mishra.

On September 10, Gaur, along with Uddho and Uddho’s friends Kumar, Singh, and Deepak, left Noida by a rental car, said the ADCP.

Later, Singh made a call to Gaur’s parents from his mobile phone and demanded a ransom of ₹50 lakh to release Gaur. “Initially, Gaur’s parents were terrified and a missing person’s complaint was filed at Expressway police station the same day, following which a team was formed to trace Gaur,” said Mishra.

He said, “Two to three days later, when they did not receive any money from the parents -- the parents were by then suspicious that it was Gaur himself who was tricking them -- they kept reducing the ransom amount.”

Police said when they found that Gaur’s mobile location was in Rewari, Haryana, a team left from Noida and found Gaur walking close to the location. “When police grilled him, he tried to mislead them by saying that kidnappers left dumped him there just then and fled,” said a police officer, asking not to be named.

When Gaur was interrogated thoroughly, he finally revealed that he had made the plan himself to dupe his parents.

Investigation revealed that he was involved in operating dating and betting applications. But he was unable to meet his expenses as his salary was only ₹25,000, said police, adding that he planned to divide the money equally with his friends.

“It came to fore that Singh was in debt after his sister’s wedding, and to repay the debts, he joined Uddho, who also works with the army, in carrying out the fake abduction,” said Mishra,

A case 318(4) (cheating), 308(5) (extortion), and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was registered against them, and efforts are underway to nab Uddho and a man identified as Deepak Kumar, a native of Haryana, said police.