Three sisters, who were abducted by armed persons for a ransom of Rs 50 lakh, have been rescued from the forest area near Indo-Nepal border, police said here today.
Kheri SP Akhilesh Chaurasia confirmed the safe release of the sisters last night.
"The sisters, identified as Santoshi (17), Rohini (19) and Upma (22), have been rescued and handed over to their parents while operation to nab the abductors in the jungles was on," he said.
Kheri police and Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) after rescuing the sisters, are now engaged in the combing operation, Chaurasia added.
The trio, daughters of one Rambali Gupta of Khairigarh village, had been abducted on the night of January 16 by six goons on gun-point.
The abductors had allegedly demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh for the safe release of the sisters.
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Meanwhile, the family of the rescued girls claimed that they paid a ransom of Rs 5 lakh to get them freed.
"The uncle of the girls paid Rs 5 lakh and brought them back home," a family member said.
In Lucknow, IG (Law and Order) A Satish Ganesh said the abductors have been identified and IG (STF) Sujit Kumar Pandey will monitor the operations to nab them.
ADG (Law and Order) Daljit Singh Chaudhary said the first priority was to rescue the girls which has been achieved. "Now it is the duty of the police to arrest the kidnappers and send them to jail and recover the ransom amount," he said.
One of the rescued girls, Upma said that before they were taken to the jungle the kidnappers made a call to her father from her mobile phone demanding the ransom amount.
She said that they were made to walk for several kilometres in the jungle and made to shift base frequently.
She said that yesterday evening, the kidnappers made a call to her father after which their uncle came in the jungle with Rs 5 lakh and two litres petrol to help the kidnappers to escape.
