March 28, 2024

A businessman, based in Barasat in North 24 Parganas, was abducted near a shopping mall in the Kasba area of south Kolkata on Wednesday. However, he was rescued within hours from a house in the Tollygunge area of south Kolkata after a complaint was lodged with the police.

Five persons have been arrested in connection with the abduction while two others have been detained, police said.

According to the police, Sk Qutubuddin, who owns a brick kiln business, was abducted from an office near the Acropolis Mall in south Kolkata by 10 to 12 persons who identified them as policemen. The abductors dragged the businessman into a vehicle which had Kolkata Police stickers on it.

They also demanded a ransom of Rs 1.5 crore from the family of the businessman, the police said, adding that around 8 pm on Wednesday, the family filed a complaint at Kasba police station.

After receiving word of the incident, Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal held a meeting with top officers at midnight. Following the meeting, Joint Commissioner of Kolkata Police (Crime) Murlidhar Sharma reached Kasba police station and alerted the nearby police stations. Scanning the CCTV footage from the area, the police obtained the number plate of the vehicle in which the businessman was taken. The owner of the vehicle was contacted. Police said after checking the mobile tower locations, they rescued the businessman from a house in the Tollygunge area around 5 am on Thursday. The police said it took them only nine hours from the time of registration of the complaint to solve the case.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event, Goyal said, “Last night, we received a complaint and immediately held a meeting with various departments, including the detective department, local division, local police station, traffic department and the Special Task Force (STF). All hands were on the deck and soon the (abducted) person was rescued.”

Police said the businessman owed his abductors money and the kidnapping was carried out to get their money back. According to the police, the businessman had taken his family out for lunch at a restaurant in the Kasba area from where he left for his office at Shanti Pally area of Kasba where his abductors, too, went posing as policemen. Police said after abducting the businessman, the abductors returned to the Shanti Pally area to check if any hue and cry had been raised over the abduction. However, a complaint had been filed by Wednesday night and the police rescued the businessman by Thursday morning.