Doc's kidnap: Holes in police story

A day after the Gaya-based physician Dr Pankaj Gupta and his wife returned home, there are four questions about their mysterious recovery which remain unanswered.

The Bihar DGP claimed that the abductors released the couple at Lucknow station from where they boarded Poorva Express for Gaya. Poorva Express does not cross Lucknow while traversing from New Delhi to Howrah.

Secondly, when the couple got down at Gaya junction and reached their house, only then the police came to know about their ‘safe recovery’, while the fact is that not only the Gaya police but cops of Bihar and UP were put on high alert following their kidnap from Barachatti on May 1.

Thirdly, the wife of the physician claimed that apparently their Audi car, in which they were travelling, was taken in a huge 16-wheel goods carrier vehicle to Uttar Pradesh, while the doctor contradicted it by asserting that their vehicle was fitted with beacon lights and crossed over to Uttar Pradesh much like a VVIP movement.

Fourthly, no senior police officers have so far been able to answer that if the UP and Bihar cops had gheraoed the apartment in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow, how were the kidnappers sent the couple to Lucknow station to board a train for Gaya.

Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Thursday smelt a rat in the kidnap case and claimed that he had information that a huge amount had been paid for safe release of the doctor and his wife.

 “The DGP’s assertion that the couple boarded Poorva Express is factually incorrect because the train passes through Kanpur and Allahabad, but never crosses through Lucknow,” said Modi. He asked Nitish regime to spell out exactly what happened and how the deal was brokered.