• Cops arrest five alleged kidnappers in a few hours
• Trader kidnapped by friends from Rajasthan
• Victim confined in building near Anekal

Mysore/Mysuru: Lashkar Police have arrested five people, natives of Rajasthan, who had allegedly kidnapped a trader in broad daylight over financial issues. The Cops arrested kidnappers within few hours of the crime.

Those arrested are Dungar Singh, Narpath Singh, Badaram, Jamtharam and Sujanram, all natives of Rajasthan and residing at Rajarajeshwarinagar in Bengaluru. They had allegedly kidnapped 35-year-old Prakash Kumar of Shivashakti Marketing at Halladakeri, a shop selling kitchenware.

They had kidnapped Prakash on June 26 at about 10 am in a Hyundai car and based on the complaint from the owner of the neighbouring shop, Lashkar Police, who had registered a case, conducted an operation and arrested the five kidnappers from a building at Jigani village in Anekal taluk and rescued Prakash Kumar, who was confined in the building.

Details: Prakash Kumar, a native of Shivana village in Rajasthan, had taken a shop on rent on 1st Cross in Halladakeri and was selling kitchenware under Shivashakti Marketing name.

On June 25 at about 9.50 am, five persons, who came in a car, kidnapped Prakash and took him in the car. One Praveen, an employee of the neighbouring shop Nandi Steel House, who saw Prakash being kidnapped, informed the same to his owner 42-year-old Polaram but Praveen had not noted down the registration number of the car but told that it was a white car.

Polaram immediately lodged a complaint at Lashkar Police Station and the Cops who swung into action immediately contacted the CCTV Monitoring Unit at City Police Commissioner’s Office and provided information about the kidnap of a trader in a white car at Halladakeri at a particular time.

The Cops at the CCTV Monitoring Unit, who checked the footages of CCTV cameras, informed Lashkar Police that only one white car had passed on that road in that particular time and even provided the registration number of that white car. Based on the information, Lashkar Police began to check CCTV footages of cameras installed on the route the car had passed and came to know that the car had gone to Jigani village.

Lashkar Police, who reached Jigani village, began to search for the car and traced it in front of a building in the evening. The Police, who conducted a raid on the building, arrested the five kidnappers and rescued Prakash Kumar, who was illegally confined in the building.

Why Prakash was kidnapped?: One of the kidnappers Dungar Singh was a wholeseller of gutka items in Bengaluru and Prakash had got gutka items worth Rs. 5.6 lakh to one Sethu of Tamil Nadu on credit basis.

As Sethu failed to repay the money, Dungar Singh demanded Prakash to pay the money to which Prakash had told Dungar Singh that he had only introduced Sethu and he (Dungar Singh) should have taken money before giving the products besides telling Dungar Singh to collect the money from Sethu itself as it was he (Sethu) who had taken the products and not him. Angered over this, Dungar Singh had kidnapped Prakash, Police sources said.

Lashkar Police, who returned to Mysuru along with the kidnappers and Prakash Kumar on Monday night, produced all the accused before a Court on Tuesday morning, which remanded them to judicial custody.

City Police Commissioner B. Ramesh, DCPs M. Muthuraj (Law and Order) and S. Jahnavi (Crime and Traffic) and Devaraja Sub-Division ACP Shanthamallappa guided Lashkar Inspector P.P. Santosh, Sub-Inspector Anil and staff Chethan, Chinnappa, Manju, Kiran, Mahadevaswamy, Pradeep, Rathod, Babu Prakash and Kavyashree in the nabbing and rescue operation.