BENGALURU: A plastic bag with 23 bundles of currency totaling USD 3 million, said to be fake, and a United Nations (UN) letter, put a scrap dealer into trouble as he was brutally beaten up and abducted by miscreants, who demanded that he give them money found on a railway track.
On Friday, Saleman, a ragpicker associated with Bappa, a scrap dealer, found USD 3 million while searching for scrap on the Nagawara railway track. Saleman informed Bappa about the money, and Bappa, who was traveling, asked him to keep the money with him.
However, Saleman approached Kaleemullah, a social activist, who took him to the police commissioner on Sunday. They handed over the money, which was later sent to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for verification.
Late Tuesday night, the accused went to Bappa’s house in Chiranjeevi Layout near Kempapura and assaulted him, demanding that he give them the money. Other ragpickers, who heard the noise, came to rescue Bappa but the miscreants allegedly threatened them and told them to stay out of it.
The ragpickers, however, alerted Kaleemullah. Kaleemullah told The New Indian Express that the accused had allegedly searched Bappa’s house for the money. “When they didn’t find the money, they blindfolded and abducted him to an unknown apartment. After checking his phone, the accused freed Bappa near Manyata Tech Park around 9:30 AM on Wednesday,” Kaleemullah said, adding that he was told that one of the miscreants was also carrying a gun.
Suspecting the miscreants to be from the same locality where Bappa lives, Kaleemullah said they would have got to know about the money through news reports. “The miscreants also threatened to kill Bappa if he filed a police complaint,” he said. He further said that police were informed about the incident but no complaint was filed.