A person has been arrested for making ransom calls to the missing JNU student’s family but it seems he was only seeking to make a quick buck
A day after the arrest of a person who allegedly made ransom calls to the family of missing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Najeeb Ahmed, the Delhi Police have hit a dead end again.
Accused Shameem was arrested from the Maharajgang area in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Sources said he told the interrogating officers that he neither knew where Najeeb was nor who had abducted him. The Crime Branch of Delhi Police had traced Shameem through technical surveillance. The mobile phone and the SIM card used to make the call have also been seized. Cops said when he was picked up, Shameem gave them a different name to evade arrest.
He is stated to have a criminal background and was earlier arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police in connection with a murder case. Preliminary investigation revealed that he had purchased four SIM cards on different names. He was apparently trying to take advantage of the Najeeb case to earn a quick buck, and had allegedly demanded Rs 20 lakh as ransom.
Shameem has been sent in to seven days’ police custody as cops said they needed to interrogate him thoroughly to ascertain his role in the case. “We are also looking for his brother, who is reportedly involved in criminal activities as well,” an officer said.
Najeeb’s family has, however, claimed that this is not the first instance that they have received such calls, and that despite informing the police, no action was ever taken.
“Since he went missing nearly three months ago, we have been receiving all sorts of calls from different numbers. We are living in constant fear,” Najeeb’s sister Sadaf Musharraf said. The 27-year-old Badaun resident, a first-year MSc student at JNU, has been missing since October 15 last year, after a scuffle with some ABVP activists the night before.
Slamming the police, the family also said that on the one hand, the department has asked them to not reveal any confidential information to the media, and on the other hand, it has been making everything public. “We never revealed anything confidential to the media without police,” Sadaf said.
In fact, till Saturday night, the family was denying receiving any ransom call, reportedly after being told to do so by the police. “Now that everything is public, there is no point of maintaining any secrecy,” Sadaf added.
Before this ransom call, the family had received a letter written by a woman from Aligarh, who claimed to have spotted Najeeb in a market. A person from Bihar also claimed to have spotted him.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police have not been able to make any headway in the case. Apart from issuing advertisements in all national dailies, the department has also increased the reward for any information from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. The Crime Branch had also sought permission to conduct polygraph (lie detector) test on nine JNU students, including Najeeb’s roommate Mohammad Qasim. The test, however, is yet to be conducted.
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 "Najeeb Ahmed")
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