Gang committed 40 crimes including kidnappings and robberies in 6 months: Jaipur police

Jaipur: Two days after seven kidnappers were arrested from Omex City – an apartment building in Bhankrota, the police revealed that the accused men had kept hostage several people after luring them into coming to Jaipur in the name of Bitcoin investment. The gang members used to change accommodation and even lived in hotels to avoid suspicion. They would kidnap 3-4 people and keep them hostage at a place until getting ransom. They would then change the accommodation. The gang has allegedly confessed to committing more than 40 crime incidents including kidnappings and robberies over the past six months.

The police had on Sunday rescued three youths belonging to Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh and Bikaner from the gang. The youths were held captive by the gang for a and were being tortured. The gang members had chopped off their ears and pulled out their finger nails in order to terrorize their family members and get ransom from them.

“They have been involved in many similar kidnappings. They would bring their victims to Jaipur from Mumbai on some pretext and then keep them hostage. One of the recent victims was one Hemant Gehlot, a resident of Kota who was tortured by the gang for more than 20 hours. He was released only after the gang was paid Rs 4.27 lakh by his family members,” said a senior police officer.

After the arrests came to light, Hemant approached Kota police on Monday and registered an FIR. The gang has been active in Bhiwadi town of Alwar district also and kidnapped two traders, but they had to release the traders without getting the ransom fearing police action.

Those arrested were identified as Bhawani Singh, Deepak Rohila, Rahul Yadav, Lokendra Singh, Pawan alias Baba Khati, Jitendra alias Jeetu alias Sukha Singh and Anupam alias Kannu Soni. All of them are residents of Haryana.

One of the victims, Lutfan Sheikh was called to Jaipur by the gang on the pretext of Bitcoin investment. Similarly, P Mangal Shah was also lured into coming to Jaipur in the name of investments in agencies.

Mohammed Shahzad was the friend of Lutfan and had come to Jaipur to help him. But fearing that he would expose them, the gang members help him also captive.

They were planning to get ransom from the family members of the victims and were torturing them.

When the police came to know about the kidnapped men, they surrounded the building and searched all the flats. The seven kidnappers were arrested over 12 hours.