A date and long drive with her friends — how group abducted Ghaziabad youngster

Noida: What a 25-year-old believed was a long drive with a woman he met through Instagram and her friends turned out to be a meticulously planned abduction that involved stolen phones, swapped SIM cards and ransom calls with fake accents – all orchestrated by a group that demanded Rs 4 crore from his family.Investigation into the case found that the trap to abduct Shashank Gupta, the son of a Ghaziabad-based trader, was laid last month. One of the accused -- Preeti -- allegedly posed as ‘Nisha' and got in touch with Shashank on Instagram. The two got to texting and talking, and eventually decided to meet in person on Sept 9. Indirapuram was the chosen spot, police said on Wednesday. Around 12.30pm that day, Shashank told his family – residents of Ghaziabad's Nehru Nagar – that he was heading to Noida to get his phone's battery changed. After dropping his grandfather in his Baleno, Shashank met Nisha and her friends – Alok Yadav, Shyam Sundar, Mohit Gupta and Sumit Kumar. The mastermind, Nimay Sharma, didn't show up at that time because he knew Shashank's family and didn't want to be recognised, police said. "Shashank loved to go for drives. When he met Nisha and her friends, they suggested going on a drive towards Yamuna Expressway, and he agreed," a senior police officer said. While Shashank and Nisha were in the Baleno, the rest of the group followed them in an XUV 300. Back at his home, Shashank's family was already puzzled about his whereabouts. Cops said the two cars stopped on the side of the expressway near Dankaur, when Shashank's Baleno – equipped with a GPS tracking device – was locked by his grandfather, who thought he was roaming about. "Shashank thought it was a technical issue with his car. The group him to go on with the long drive in the XUV and get the Baleno repaired later. Shashank didn't suspect anything. It was once the accused threw Shashank's phone from the XUV that he realised something was wrong," the officer said. The group reached Kannauj, where they kept Shashank hostage in Shyam's house. By the evening, Shashank's family, unable to get in touch with him, tracked the Baleno's location to the expressway and approached a nearby police station. Teams of 50 cops were formed in Ecotech-1, Beta-2, Dankaur and Kasna stations under the supervision of ACP Sarthak Sengar and ACP Arvind Kumar, police said. "We probed how he came in contact with Nisha and why he left home in such a hurry that day to meet her. We also checked his call records, and two numbers popped up. One of them was registered in Haryana and was stolen. Nisha had used it to call Shashank," DCP (Greater Noida) Saad Miya Khan said. In addition, investigators traced ransom calls made by the accused to Shashank's family. "Every phone used to make the ransom call was stolen and the SIM cards were swapped. The callers also changed their accents to confuse Shashank's family," a third police officer said. Five days went by, and on Sept 14, the accused brought down their ransom demand to Rs 50 lakh. They returned from Kannauj to Greater Noida's Jewar to collect the money. "We traced Nisha's phone number to Jewar. A search was carried out and we spotted the XUV parked," the DCP said. Gunfight broke out, and the five accused -- Mohit, Sumit, Alok, Shyam and Nimay – were arrested. Preeti, alias Nisha, is on the run along with another associate. Noida police commissioner Laxmi Singh on Wednesday honoured DCP Khan and his team, awarding them Rs 50,000 for cracking the case successfully.