Teen plots self’s fake kidnapping ‘to teach father a lesson’

Nagpur: A 19-year-old and her friend from the neighbourhood allegedly scripted a bizarre kidnapping drama to teach the girl’s father “a lesson for his overprotective nature”. The hoax, which triggered a kidnapping scare in Chandan Nagar on Friday, came to an end with the police nabbing two accused.
Two so-called ‘kidnappers’ demanded Rs 30 lakh ransom, threatening to chop off the girl’s body otherwise. City police chief (CP) Amitesh Kumar’s team spread across the city — plugging entry and exit routes, checking CCTV cameras at every junction and enlisting the help of cyber experts, only to find out it was a hoax.
Using the girl’s mobile phone, the ‘kidnappers’ made around half a dozen calls between 7.14am and 7.45am, asking for Rs30 lakh and then reducing it to Rs20 lakh. They tied scarves around their necks to make their voices sound hoarse and spoke in a Haryanvi accent, which unnerved the cops too.
The teenager had a CCTV connection of her residence in her cellphone. After watching the cops stepping into her house through the phone, her friends warned her father of dire consequences.
Cops booked the two youngsters — Rishikesh Korke and Chiku Chavan — for kidnapping and extortion which, if proved before the court, may lead to a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment. Korke and Chavan are Std XII pass outs.
Police said Korke and the teenage girl in question had planned the kidnapping a day ago. Korke had approached a friend for his car but the vehicle had punctures. Later, Korke hired another car from a garage to execute the bizarre drama. He picked up the girl from her residence, who stepped out out under the pretext of taking the dog for a walk, before driving to different parts of the city like Futala Lake and Seminary Hills.
After learning that the cops have started a probe, the girl used a passerby’s phone to tell her father she was abandoned near Sakkardara Lake. The cops later nabbed Korke and Chavan.