NEW DELHI, Mar 20: A father of a 21-year-old girl from Madhya Pradesh lodged a police complaint of kidnap of his daughter and demand of Rs 30 lakhs as ransom, but the police after preliminary investigation claimed that she herself faked her kidnapping to take the money to go abroad.
In a police complaint, the father said he received pictures of his daughter with her hands and feet tied with a random demand letter. He said his daughter was enrolled at a coaching institute in Rajasthan’s Kota.
However, the Kota police said the initial investigation suggests that no crime was committed against her and that she faked her kidnapping. “In the investigation so far, evidence shows that no crime has been committed against the girl and no kidnapping has taken place. From the evidence found so far, the incident appears to be false,” Kota Superintendent of Police Amrita Duhan said.
Ms Duhan said they formed teams upon receiving information about the girl’s father’s police complaint, filed in Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri on March 18. During the probe, the police found out that she was living with two of her friends in Indore, about 400 kilometres from where her parents lived.
The police then traced one of the friends, who informed them that the girl and her other friend wanted to go abroad. She said she would not be able to study in India and wanted money to study abroad, her friend told the police.
Her location for the last 6-7 months was not traced in Kota and she had not been admitted to any coaching institute or hostel in the city. The girl’s mother enrolled her in a coaching institute on August 3 and she stayed there till August 5, following which she went to Indore, the police said.
To make her parents believe that she was studying at the institute, the girl also sent messages about her performance in tests from a different number. She then went a step ahead and faked her kidnapping. Taking help from her friend, she clicked pictures of her hands and feet tied at their Indore flat, and sent them to her father, and demanded a ransom of ₹ 30 lakh. “I request her to come back home and go to the nearest police station for help,” Ms Duhan said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
