The Kota police today claimed to have busted a gang of 11 people who had kidnapped three Maharashtra businessmen. Five of the members were arrested while the search is on for the other six, police said.
The businessmen-- Yogendra Hansraj Prajapati and Mohammad Raees of Mumbai and Suryakant Hathimare of Nagpur were dealing in antiques, Kota city SP Anshuman Bhomia said.
They were kidnapped on Friday night and held captive in a farmhouse on Girdharpura highway in Kota. After receiving a ransom of Rs 22 lakh, the trio was dropped on a national highway from where they reached Jawahar Nagar police station and lodged a case, the SP said.
In their complaint, the businessmen said that they had known two of the gang members including the kingpin Kuldeep alias Sunny and Kiran Bundela for the last one and a half years.
Last week, the accused invited them to Kota for a major deal of antiques, the SP said.
Prajapati along with his two partners reached the city on July 12 and were taken to a farmhouse by Kuldeep where the other gang members were waiting, the SP said.
The accused thrashed the businessmen and demanded a ransom of one crore but later the amount was settled at Rs 25 lakh.
Their families paid 22 lakh through the Hawala route while the kidnappers took away the trio's gold rings, chains and cash worth around Rs 1.5o lakh, he said.
During interrogation, the police examined CCTV footage of the area and managed to zero in on the culprits.
Five of the accused-- Kuldeep Rajput alias Sunny (29), Saikiran alias Kiran Bundela (38) and Sachin Guglani (30) hailing from Haryana, along with Depak Arya (30) and Neeraj Arya (23) from Madhya Pradesh were arrested from Ujjain late last night.
The other members identified as Golu Pathak, Akshya Sharma, Prerit Mudgal, Surendra Sharma, Aman Khan, Vinay alias Kamal Jain are yet to be nabbed.
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