BENGALURU: The Electronic City police rescued a kidnapped spa manager and arrested three accused, one of whom had lost misappropriated apartment funds in online gaming and wanted to earn it back through criminal ways.
The accused were identified as Manjunath (25), a facility manager at an apartment in Gottigere and resident of Bannerghatta; Prajwal (25), a manager at a private company and resident of Anekal; and Akshay (28), a car driver and resident Jigani and native of of Bengaluru South district. Akshay is also a murder accused in another case.
The victim, Ashith Jha (28) from Bihar, works as a manager at a Thai spa in Akshayanagar.
On February 15, Jha was heading home on a two-wheeler with another manager, Mallukumar, around 9 pm. Near Bettadasanapura, three men in a car allegedly rammed into the two-wheeler from behind.
The trio verbally abused them, assaulted Mallukumar with a machete and other weapons, bundled Jha into the car after blindfolding him and fled.
Mallukumar filed a complaint with the police later.
The accused allegedly called Mallukumar and demanded a ransom of Rs 2 lakh, threatening to kill Jha if the money was not paid.
The police said they initially had no leads, but pursued multiple angles of investigation. Based on credible information, they traced the vehicle to Jigani and suspected that the accused were hiding in Anekal. On Tuesday evening, the police traced and apprehended the three accused along with Jha from a deserted area off S Bingipura Road, when one of the accused came to collect the ransom amount.
During the interrogation, the accused revealed that Prajwal, who was working at an apartment in Gottigere, had misappropriated apartment funds and later lost the money in online gaming.
To recover the amount, he plotted along with his friends to kidnap Jha. They were tracking Jha for over a month before executing their plan.
The accused were taken into police custody after producing them before a court.