A case of mistaken identity: Brother

Snehil Jaiswal / TNN / Jan 8, 2006, 02:02 IST

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Navish Akhtar returned home after having gone missing for 24 hours.

PATNA: Saturday was celebration time for the residents of 4E, Namaskar Apartment, where Navish Akhtar returned home after having gone missing for 24 hours. Sweets, phone calls and relatives pouring in marked the celebrations at Akhtar's home.
Shama Parveen, mother of Akhtar, would not stop saying, "Isse badi baat kya ho sakti hai ki hamaara bachcha waapas aa gaya".His elder brother, Naveen, a third year law student in Mumbai, said the family couldn't have asked for more.
Akhtar's family members told TOI that he had gone to buy stationery from a shop located at the Pataliputra Colony roundabout on Thursday evening when three people accosted him and forced him to inhale "something" which made him unconscious.
"Akhtar regained senses on Friday morning, when one of the men gave him a cell phone and asked him to call up his father and ask for Rs 50,000," said Naveen.

Akhtar allegedly told his kidnappers that his father, civil SDO of Darbhanga, was not be in a position to pay such a big amount.
"On hearing this, the kidnappers told him that the son of a private automobile showroom of Patna could easily pay the amount," said Naveen, adding that, his brother's kidnapping was a case of mistaken identity.
The kidnappers again forced Akhtar to smell something, following which he fainted, only to wake up to find himself alone in a farm. Akhtar saw a railway track and found out from the local people that he was near Ara station.

"He then went there, bought a platform ticket with the little money that he had with him and came to his maternal grandmother's house in Kankerbagh," summed up Naveen. Akhtar's mother said her son was so scared that he refused to go anywhere even with his parents.
"He's been shivering ever since he has come back," she said. Though the family members are relieved after the return of their youngest son, the mother is still skeptical.
"I have lost faith and want to move out," she said. She asked her elder son, Naveen, to accompany her daughter, Lubna, to her school.
"I can't leave my daughter alone now," said the frightened mother. Gloom at Prashant house: While there is celebration at Akhtar's home, the cloud of gloom has thickened at the residence of kidnapped trader, Prashant Jain.
Even as more than 48 hours have elapsed since he was kidnapped in front of his house at Buddha Marg on Thursday night, the police are yet to recover him. His mother, Neera Jain, a patient of high blood pressure refused to take food.
"I was waiting for Prashant for dinner on Thursday night, but he never came," she said, all the time looking towards the door, thinking that her son will be the next to arrive at her home, where relatives kept pouring throughout the day.
For Nishant, Prashant's elder brother, "every phone call is a matter of excitement".
The family spoke to IG (Patna zone) Rajvardhan Sharma on Saturday, who assured them that the police is trying hard to locate Prashant.

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