Former cop among two held for kidnap

BENGALURU: Two persons, including a previously dismissed police constable, were held on charges of kidnapping and extortion.

Naveen, 28, a resident of Nagasandra and Arun Prasad, 28, from Arishinakunte in Nelamangala, a dismissed constable, are the accused and were arrested by Sadashivanagar police.

According to the police, they both had allegedly kidnapped three natives of Andhra Pradesh — Poliki Rakesh, Rama Raviteja and Mansoor on October 15. Naveen and Prasad picked up the three persons in a car near Sankey Tank and later demanded a ransom of Rs 6 lakh.

The duo also took the victims’ debit cards from them and made them withdraw Rs 90,000 from an ATM. In addition, Mansoor was made to purchase gold jewels which they took, and then released all three of them.

However, police said the accused began to again call the victims again to extort them and threatened to kill them. The victims then filed a police complaint and the accused were arrested. A car, a knife, debit card, two phones, cash Rs. 90,000 and 65 grams of gold was recovered from them.

A police official said Arun Prasad earlier worked as a constable in the City Armed Reserve (CAR) headquarters and was dismissed on charges of dereliction of duty in June 2015.