Gurgaon: Police rescued an MBA student with the help of his friends and arrested a kidnapper while three of his accomplices are on the run.
A manhunt has been launched to capture them.
While Varun Agarwal, who is pursuing an MBA at a city-based university, was freed from the clutches of his kidnappers in Ullhawas on Thursday, Shivraj was nabbed from Badshapur.
Three kidnappers managed to escape when police were focusing on safeguarding the victim.
Earlier, one of the accused, Vicky, had seen Varun, a native of Jhansi, spending lavishly on personal expenses, police said.
Varun had met Vicky, a car driver from Bandhwari, when he booked a taxi recently and later started talking to him. Vicky hatched a plan to kidnap Varun, who stays at a PG in Sushant Lok-2 in Sector 57, and extort money from him.
But luckily, Varun's phone number linked to the bank account with over Rs 1 lakh remained in the PG.
"The phone number he carried at the time of the kidnapping was connected to another bank account with no money. So the accused wanted to get some money from his friend, Gaurav Soni, and their plan was foiled by us. We have launched a manhunt to nab the three absconding offenders, including Vicky," a senior police official said.
At 1.13 am on Thursday, Varun called college mate Gaurav asking for a UPI transfer of Rs 25,000.
"I stay in the same PG and Varun asked for money, saying that he needed it for the medical treatment of his parents who have reached Gurgaon. I sensed something was amiss as Varun was with me till 11.30 pm and I know that his parents were in Jhansi. I sought time to check the balance in my bank account and when Varun called me back, I said the bank's server was down and asked him to come to the PG and collect cash," Gaurav told police.
With an unexpected response, Varun's call was disconnected.
"I received another call from Varun's phone and an unknown person, claiming to be from a hospital, spoke to me advising me to help Varun. My suspicion increased after the call, as the unknown caller and Varun together asked me to hand over the cash to someone they would send to Hong Kong Bazaar in Sector 57," Varun said.
He said, "I reached Hong Kong Bazaar with four of my friends, Rythm, Harsh, Harshit and Kushagra. We spotted a police patrolling team there and informed them about the suspicion. During the same time, I received a call from Varun asking me to hand over the cash to the person at Sector 55/56 metro station on Golf Course Road."
The police team waited at a distance from Gaurav and his friends near the Sector 55/56 metro station.
A bike rider stopped near Gaurav and asked for the money. "When I asked about Varun, he insisted on money and I gave a signal to the cops waiting nearby. With our help, the police nabbed the bike rider from the spot," Gaurav said in his statement to the police.
The bike rider identified himself as Shivraj from Badshapur.
"Shivraj confessed that he, along with three friends from Bandhwari, kidnapped Varun and held him hostage in an MUV at a deserted area near Ullawas under Sector 65 police limits," Sector 56 inspector Vinod Kumar said.
The police quickly acted on the information and made Shivraj contact his associates, saying he picked up Rs 25,000 cash and asked them to come to Sector 62.