Abducted Kolkata businessman rescued near Jharkhand border

ASANOL/KOLKATA: A Biharbased gang abducted a scion of the Khandelwal family, which owns the Kolkata-based Paras Pan Masala company, from outside his Girish Park office on Wednesday night and took him more than 220 km away from the city before being intercepted at a police check post barely 2.5 km from the Bengal-Jharkhand border.
The abduction of 47-year old Manoj Khandelwal from the heart of north Kolkata brought back memories of the 2001 kidnapping of Khadim’s owner Partha Pratim Roy Barman, police officers said, but added that the differences between that case and Wednesday’s were “far too many”.“We cannot rule out anything right now, including an inside job, but can say that this abduction looks to be a really amateurish job,” an officer said.

Bangur Avenue resident Khandelwal had just stepped out of the family’s Girish Park office around 11.30 pm on Wednesday when three men walked up to him, told him — at gunpoint — to get into his own car and then followed him inside. They then forced his driver to drive towards Maniktala and, once the car reached the crossing, they got off Khandelwal’s car and shifted to a waiting SUV along with their captive.
Khandelwal’s driver, who was let off, called the family, who lodged an FIR at the Girish Park police station. “We still cannot fathom why the abductors would let his driver off,” an investigator told TOI. The SUV, along with Khandelwal and his five abductors, then sped towards the Bengal-Jharkhand border along NH 2 before they encountered a check post at Dendua near Salanpur, 2.5km from the Jharkhand border.

Cops belonging to the Durgapur-Asansol Commissionarate were on their regular night check at the crossing when they happened to flag down this SUV and found him inside.
Accused hail from Bihar’s Lakhisarai
Additional deputy commissioner of police (west) Anamitra Das said, “Our team, comprising two constables and one assistant sub-inspector, happened to flag down this car and found a man inside with his hands and feet tied and his lips taped. He was being held to the car floor.”
Cops also recovered two syringes from the vehicle, which suggested that he might have been drugged. “We have recovered three improvised firearms and several rounds of ammunition. The five abductors have been identified as Karan Kumar, Shivam Kumar, Golu Kumar, Vivek Kumar and Sunil Mahato,” Das added.
Khandelwal was rescued and told cops that he heard his captors discussing how and when to make the ransom calls. They were speaking in Bhojpuri and Hindi, he told his rescuers. A joint Asansol-Durgapur Police Commissionerate-Kolkata Police probe established that the accused came from Lakhisarai in Bihar and officials said they were trying to find out who had employed the five abductors.
“The abductors initially tried to argue that they had a patient in the car and were getting late for hospital, but tried to flee when our team asked to check the car,” an officer said.
KP officials said they moved court on Thursday to bring the accused to Kolkata.
“We have applied for their transit remand and need to question them to look into possible links with bigger gangs. We are also looking for CCTV footage to ascertain whether separate teams carried out any reconnaissance,” one of the officers said. “But the circumstances of the abduction — and the amateurish way in which it was carried out — raise several questions,” one official said.