LUCKNOW/GORAKHPUR: Basti police and the Special Task Force (STF) rescued 13-year-old boy Akhand Kasoudhan, son of a cloth trader, from Gorakhpur, a week after he was kidnapped and a demand of Rs 50 lakh in ransom was made for his safe release.
Akhand, son of cloth merchant Ashok Kasoudhan of Rudhauli in Basti district, was kidnapped on April 23.
Akhand was going to the grocery store near his home last Saturday when he went missing. Three days later, his businessman father received a ransom call and was asked to pay Rs 50 lakh to ensure safe release of his son.
SP, Basti, Ashish Srivastava said police managed to track down the accused with the help of STF and finally arrested the kidnappers, identified as Suraj Singh and Aditya Singh.
The accused knew the victim’s father as they supplied raw material to him. In order to evade getting caught, the accused used to borrow phones of roadside hawkers to make ransom calls while pretending that they had an urgent call to make, the SP added.
“This happened in all the three ransom calls. All calls were made from the same area, but different numbers were used. We constituted 10 teams which scanned footage of over 100 CCTVs,” said the officer.
The teams spotted a green bike on all the three days in the area.
