Gang of four arrested for kidnapping college student in Bengaluru

The Yelahanka and Chitradurga police, in a joint operation, rescued a 19-year-old college student from a gang of abductors in Chitradurga district on Monday.

The police said Jagadeesh, a first-year BBA student in a private college near Yelahanka in Bengaluru, was rescued within three hours after the incident was reported.

According to the police, the boy was abducted over a financial dispute between his father and a toor dal mill owner, who is the main accused in the case.

The arrested have been identified as Ramesh Rathod, 43, Rizwan Patel, 23, Indrajit Pawar, 23, and Harish Kumar, 24, all residents of Kalaburagi district. Jagadeesh is a native of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh.

Following a preliminary investigation, police said Rathod had been supplying toor dal for traders. Jagadeesh's father Suresh and his brother had purchased toor dal from Rathod and had defaulted on a payment of about Rs 3 crore.

Rathod repeatedly sought repayment from Suresh's brother, who is settled in Dubai, but in vain. Later, he filed a cheating complaint against the brothers in Kalaburagi.

Suresh reportedly refused to make the payment even after the complaint. Rathod collected Jagadeesh’s details and devised a plan to abduct him and recover the money from Suresh. The police have sought from Suresh details regarding the claims made by the accused.

Financial dispute

Anoop A Shetty, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-East), said the financial dispute had led to the abduction.

The gang abducted Jagadeesh in an SUV around 12.15 pm on Monday from Muneshwaranagar Road, Kattigenahalli, as he was heading to his flat on his motorbike.

A classmate of Jagadeesh’s witnessed the incident and she shared the SUV’s registration number with his flatmate who filed a complaint with the Yelahanka police.

The police traced the vehicle owner from whom Rathod had borrowed the SUV. They collected the SUV’s FASTag details and tracked its movement towards Tumakuru.

A police team from the city that was on the abductors’ trail informed the Chitradurga police about the vehicle that was near Hiriyur.

Parashurama K, Superintendent of Police, Chitradurga district, assigned police sub-inspector Manjunath of Aimangala police station on the trail.

The abductors, sensing the police move, left Jagadeesh near Sira and headed towards Kalaburagi. The police later detained the gang at Aimangala near Hiriyur. Two SUVs used for the abduction have been seized.