Sultanpur (Uttar Pradesh): This is indeed peculiar and hilarious. A youth has been arrested here on charge of staging his own ‘kidnapping’. The question is why did he resort to such a mean? The youth did so to frame the father of his girlfriend in a criminal as he opposed their relationship. Police said Friday that they are trying to probe whether the girlfriend had any role to play in the ‘staged’ kidnapping. Apart from main accused Jitendra Kumar, 20, his friend Ravi was also arrested Thursday for helping him.
Police arrested them after their investigations revealed that a ransom call was made by Ravi using Jitendra’s phone. Jitendra belongs to Amethi and lives with his maternal grandmother Durgawati in Nevadanupur village in Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh.
Jitendra had started singing in local musical events. He left January 23 for Varanasi on the pretext of learning music. The following morning, his father Surendra Kumar received a ‘ransom call’ that his son had been ‘kidnapped’ and Rs 10 lakh should be paid to secure his release.
Sultanpur Superintendent of Police Arvind Chaturvedi led the probe. “We found that the mobile phone of Jitendra had been used to make the call. We also noticed something amiss as a new SIM card was put around 2.00am January 24 but the ransom call came around 8.00am,” he said. Police found that the SIM card used to make the ransom call had been issued in Ravi’s name.
A police team traced the two to Shivgarh and arrested them. During questioning, Jitendra confessed that he had staged his own kidnapping. He did so in order to falsely implicate his girlfriend’s father who was opposed to their relationship. However, things did not turn out as planned for Jitendra.
Police also said that during the call, the name of the father of Jitendra’s girlfriend also cropped up.