Police have rescued a 14-year-old girl whom a jobless MBA graduate had allegedly kidnapped with the help of his fiancée who was the victim’s private tutor. The suspect had demanded a ransom of Rs 25 lakh from the girl’s hotelier father for her release.

Pavithra, a student of class 9, was allegedly kidnapped by the suspect, Nagabhushan, a 26-year-old jobless MBA graduate, in “collusion” with his fiancée Aishwarya, 20, a final-year BCom student who used to give the girl tuition at her home in Prakash Nagar, Rajajinagar.

Nagabhushan would visit Aishwarya’s house often and was not stranger to her students. Around 6 pm on Wednesday, he saw the teenage girl walking to the house of Aishwarya. He pulled in near her and offered to drop her at Aishwarya’s home. Pavithra hesitated for a moment but Nagabhushan allegedly cajoled her into going with him. The car, instead of moving to Aishwarya’s home, sped towards Srinagar where Nagabhushan allegedly kept the girl hostage at a friend’s home, the Rajajinagar police said.

Nagabhushan, police went on, desperately needed some quick money to build a house and repay loans he had taken for a loss-making business. He is suspected to have hatched a plot with Aishwarya to kidnap one of her students. Later, the couple zeroed in on Pavithra as his father, Suresh, is a hotelier, police said.

After Pavithra was kidnapped and did not return home, her mother Rathnamma got worried. She went to Aishwarya’s home and asked her about Pavithra. Aishwarya allegedly lied to her, saying Pavithra left for home after attending tuition. Both of them then went in search of Pavithra even as Rathnamma remained worried.

Later, a person called up Suresh and demanded Rs 25 lakh as ransom for Pavithra’s release. A shocked Suresh promptly sought the help of police who then questioned Aishwarya and checked the call detail record of her mobile phone. They found something fishy in it.

“After some intense questioning, we found that Aishwarya and Nagabhushan had together plotted the kidnap. He had been updating her constantly by sending her text messages,” said a police officer on the condition of anonymity. “In one of the messages, Nagabhushan said he had left the girl near a hotel in Bhashyam Circle as he had struck a deal with her parents and was going to collect the ransom near the Nice road junction.”

The officer went on: “In the meantime, we asked Suresh to accept Nagabhushan’s demand for ransom. Nagabhushan asked him to meet him in Peenya but later changed the venue to the Nice road junction. As soon as Nagabhushan came to meet Suresh there around 1 am Thursday, three police teams apprehended him.”

Later, based on Nagabhushan’s text messages to Aishwarya, police rescued Pavithra who was found abandoned near Bhashyam Circle. Both the suspects have been arrested for kidnap.