Dentist, banker held for kidnapping labourer in Chandigarh

What raises questions is that the accused are relatively well-off yet allegedly kidnapped a man who carried little with him to rob.

A dentist and a banker were arrested on charges of kidnapping and attempting to rob a migrant labourer from near the Chandigarh railway station on Sunday morning. Police produced the duo — private bank manager Jogesh Suman, 34, of Hoshiarpur and dentist Vivek Sundha, 33, of Nawanshahr, Punjab — before a court that remanded them to two-day police custody on Monday. A third person with them is a call centre employee who has been identified but is at large, police said.

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The arrests were made on a complaint by Rakesh Kumar Jha, 20, who said that the men in a Maruti Swift car (PB-07AK-5589) took away his fellow Bihar native and local neighbour Phema (age not known), when they were walking home to Indira Colony in Manimajra after getting off a train around 3.30 am. They later dumped him on the city’s outskirts and were traced as Jha and another witness to the crime had taken down the registration number of the car.

Jha said that when Phema and he reached near the traffic lights near Madhya Marg around 4 am, a man standing next to a car randomly called out to them while two persons were sitting in the car. When Jha approached the man, he asked them for their identity proofs; Jha showed him his Aadhaar card, of which the man clicked a picture before returning it. He asked Jha to leave but pulled Phema into the car after Phema said he does not have an identity proof. Phema is learnt to have told the police that the men assaulted and threatened but dumped him after he did not stop yelling for help.

What raises questions is that the accused are relatively well-off yet allegedly kidnapped a man who carried little with him to rob. Police got to the men as the car was found to be registered in the name of Jogesh’s brother. Police said Jogesh had stayed in New Zealand for six years and returned to India after his brother’s death.