JOIN USTwo Bangalore doctors were virtually promised the moon—pots of gold unearthed from a field in Haryana—and lured to a distant North Indian state by an excavator driver. But the search for gold took a dramatic twist leading to one doctor’s alleged kidnap, and eventual release after an adventurous ordeal.
City police sources said Dr Shankar and his brother Suresh, who runs a nursing home at Basavapura in Bangalore, had come into contact with the driver.
The driver, from Haryana, fabricated a story and convinced the brothers that he had unearthed vast quantities of gold in his fields and that they had to be disposed of. The brothers fell for this claim, and even travelled to Haryana. But they weren’t convinced the first time. A week later, Shankar changed his mind and decided to take the plunge. He boarded a flight and walked straight into the trap.
A City police team comprising KR Puram inspector Vasudev and two of his sub-ordinates travelled to Haryana and with the help of the local police eventually rescued the doctor. The doctor was expected to land in Bangalore by Monday midnight.
However, the Haryana police had a slightly different story. According to the police, the youth from Haryana had lured the doctor to a small village in Haryana to treat a patient for a big sum, and later kidnapped the medical practitioner at gun point on arrival.
The doctor reportedly fell prey to promises of return airfare from Bangalore to New Delhi along with a hefty fee for treatment. The entire sequence was pre-planned by the Haryana lad who intended to make a fast buck out of the misadventure. A ransom of Rs 50 lakh was sought.
However, before their ill-designed plan could finally be executed, the police managed to rescue the beleaguered doctor late on Sunday in a joint operation that saw several gun shots being fired from both ends. Three people were arrested after the encounter that took place in a forested area near the village.
Mohd Illiyas, the station house officer (SHO), Hondal in Palwal district, who was involved in the operation late on Sunday evening, told Deccan Herald that one of the accused, Irshad, arrested on Sunday was in Bangalore last month. On January 19, he happened to visit the 30-year-old Shankar for some treatment.
Before Irshad walked out of the nursing home, he planned a conspiracy to extract money from the doctor. He told Shankar that his ageing father in Hondal village in Haryana, too, was suffering from the same ailment and he would be obliged if Shankar could plan a visit to treat his father at home. The lure of hefty fee, return air fare and overnight stay, perhaps, left little for the Bangalore-based doctor to reason that the move could be a ploy, given that there are numerous doctors and hospitals in not-faraway Chandigarh and New Delhi to treat the ailing father.
It was in the evening of February 10 that Shankar boarded a flight from Bangalore to New Delhi. He was received by Irshad at the airport and was driven in a Wagan-R car to an undisclosed location somewhere in the forests of Haryana. To Shankar’s bewilderment, three of Irshad’s partners-in-crime waited at the spot. The doctor was soon tied with a rope all around his body and bundled up in the rear of the car.
A ransom call was made to Shankar’s brother in Bangalore, the SHO said. The police were pressed into action. The mobile surveillance of calls led to information about the location of the accused. A joint operation of both state police teams finally brought an end to the episode. The SHO said the three accused, including Irshad, were presented before the court on Monday and sent to police custody.