Police today arrested a gang of nine persons allegedly involved in a youth's kidnapping and recovered partial ransom amount.
The youth, belonging to a builder's family was kept hostage for 32 days and was released on April 13 somewhere near Nashik after the gang received ransom of Rs 2 crore, Atul Chandra Kulkarni, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) said.
Of this Rs 90 lakh have been recovered and another Rs 50 lakh is in the bank's locker of main accused's wife. The rest will be soon recovered, he added.
"On March 11, a case under section 341, 328 and 364 of IPC was reported at Tilak Nagar police station that a youth from Ghatkopar was kidnapped when he was walking outside from his home late night," the officer said.
"Kidnappers started demanding ransom amount of Rs two crore or else threatened of dire consequences. In order to dodge police action, kidnappers changed their hideouts from Mumbai, Wani, Murbad and contacted family members from a running car, from a distance of 10-15 kms from where the boy was kept," said Kulkarni.
When the accused ran out of sim cards, one of them rushed to UP and got a bunch of cards and used it Maharashtra, the officer said.
"Even before the boy's release we were searching the accused. We collected information from the boy and traced the accused and two cars have been seized from their possession," he added.
The main accused has been identified as Ajit Apraj alias Ajij Bhai (40), a used cars dealer.
All of them have been remanded to police custody till May 5 and investigations are underway.
