Engineering student fakes kidnapping to extort Rs 13 lakh from family

By Sudharam Sarap

Bhubaneswar, April 17: In a startling case of deception, a 22-year-old engineering student and three of his associates were detained by the Info Valley Police in Bhubaneswar on Friday for allegedly staging a fake kidnapping to extort Rs 13 lakh from his own family.

The accused, a final-year engineering student residing in a rented accommodation in the Madanpur area on the city’s outskirts, is reported to have hatched the plan to repay mounting debts incurred due to an extravagant lifestyle.

The incident came to light on Wednesday after the student’s father, a resident of Odisha’s Kalahandi district, lodged a complaint alleging that his son had been abducted by unidentified miscreants who were demanding a hefty ransom for his release.

Acting swiftly, Police Commissioner S. Dev Datta Singh constituted a special team that deployed both technical surveillance and human intelligence to trace the missing youth. Within an hour of the complaint, police located the student at a house near the Madanpur panchayat office.

While the initial operation was treated as a rescue mission, investigators soon uncovered that the abduction had been staged. The student had allegedly used his own mobile phone to call his family, posing as a victim in captivity and demanding ransom.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the student had borrowed nearly Rs 10 lakh from friends over the past few years to sustain an expensive lifestyle. Police are now probing how the borrowed money was spent and the extent of involvement of the three associates in executing the plan.

All four accused remain in police custody as further investigation is underway to establish the full scope of the conspiracy and any additional financial or criminal links.