Mounting debt behind kidnapping of Ghaziabad businessman’s son?

Ghaziabad: Debt and a desire to make quick money were the reasons behind the kidnapping of a 25-year-old Ghaziabad resident, police said on Monday.The abductors kidnapped Shashank Gupta and took him to Kannauj. They demanded Rs 4 crore ransom from his parents, said officials, who foiled their plan and rescued Shashank on Sunday.Shashank, a resident of Nehru Nagar in Ghaziabad, was reported missing by his grandfather to the Dankaur police on Sept 9. The complainant said Shashank's Baleno car was found abandoned on the Yamuna Expressway, indicating he may have been lured or taken in another vehicle. The police filed a case under Section 140(3) (kidnapping) of the BNS and initiated an investigation. The suspects Mohit Gupta and Sumit Kumar of Farrukhabad, Alok Yadav and Shyam Sundar of Kannauj, and Nimay Sharma of Noida Extension, were taken into custody. According to Saad Miya Khan, deputy commissioner of police, Greater Noida, during the investigation, the suspects revealed that the kidnapping was a brainchild of Nimay Sharma and Alok Yadav. Nimay and Alok's tour and travel business was running into losses and had incurred a heavy debt. Nimay knew Shashank's father, Manish Gupta, who owns a tile business in the Ghaziabad Nehru Market, was well-to-do. He had visited him twice and gauged his son Shashank to be a simple man. The business partners hatched the kidnapping plan to pay off the debt. They roped in their friend Nisha, alias Preeti, to honeytrap Shashank.According to the plan, she befriended him and demanded to meet on Sept 9. Shashank dropped his grandfather at Indirapuram and went to see her under the pretence of going to Noida to get his phone fixed.He picked up Preeti in his Baleno, but little did he know that Alok, Nimay, and their companions, Mohit Gupta, Ankit, and Sumit, had started following his car. After covering a little distance, Preeti stopped the car on the pretext of having a conversation with Shashank. She stepped out of the car for a moment. Immediately, Mohit, Ankit, and Sumit rushed into the backseat and threatened Shashank to keep driving. The three accused took him to the Yamuna Expressway via Noida-Greater Noida, where Alok was already waiting. From there, they abandoned the Baleno and pushed Shashank into their car. They drove to Chibbramau, Kannauj, and held Shashank captive at a vacant house that belonged to Mohit's maternal uncle, Shyam Sundar. Mohit, Ankit, and Shyam Sundar kept watch, while Alok and Nimay visited. Alok and Nimay used stolen mobile numbers and repeatedly called the father Manish Gupta from various locations in NCR. They demanded a ransom of Rs 4 crore. On Sunday, a deal of Rs 50 lakh was fixed between Manish and the kidnappers.According to the deal, the kidnappers called Manish to Jewar. Meanwhile, police, with the help of surveillance and tracking the mobile numbers from which the ransom was demanded, found the kidnappers' location to be near the Ramner canal. Dankaur police, SWAT Team GB Nagar, Ecotech-1 police, and Beta-2 police began patrolling the area and chanced upon the suspects in an XUV300. A gunfight ensued, in which Alok and Mohit were injured. Police are still on the lookout for the kidnappers' accomplices, Ankit and Preeti. The probe is underway.