Bangalore businessman safe home, kidnappers at large

The police are yet to arrest the kidnappers of a businessman who was rescued from Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.

The 30-year-old businessman, Pradhan, was brought to the city, and was being interviewed by the police to gather information on his kidnappers.

The kidnappers, the police said, escaped after abandoning Pradhan, since they had come to know that investigators were closing in on them.

“We are investigating the case to gather information on the abductors and their intention. Pradhan could not identify some of them since they wearing monkey caps,” deputy commissioner of police (south) Sonia Narang said.

Stationery shop owner Pradhan reportedly told the police that he had received a call around 11.45am on Saturday. The caller conned him to reach Marathahalli by offering to place a bulk purchase order.

Pradhan said three men in a Toyota Innova car forcefully took him away from Marathahalli. He was blindfolded and beaten up in the moving car.

The kidnappers took Pradhan to a stone crushing unit in Chittoor, and forced him to contact his father to ask Rs3 crore as ransom for his safe release.

Meanwhile, Pradhan’s wife Ragashree had approached the police with a complaint saying her husband had gone missing. After receiving the ransom call, she lodged a complaint of kidnap. The kidnappers reportedly told his family to take the ransom money to Mulabagilu near Kolar before 5am on Wednesday. The police followed Pradhan’s relatives to Kolar.

However, the kidnappers contacted the relatives again, and changed the spot to hand over the ransom to Palamaner, and later to Nellur, Chittoor, SR Puram and Puttur in Andhra Pradesh.

Soon the miscreants got wind of the police trailing them. They fled leaving Pradhan behind. The businessman contacted his father from a public telephone booth. The police team rushed to the spot and brought him back to the city.

The police had on Tuesday said the kidnappers were associates of Korangu Krishna, a notorious rowdy.