MALAPPURAM: A passenger, who was travelling from Karipur airport to Kozhikode on a taxi, was kidnapped on Thursday morning by a gang that arrived in two vehicles at Unniyal Parambu, barely two kilometres from the airport, the police have said. However, the kidnappers didn’t take the man’s luggage. Police said an investigation has been launched into the incident.
“We have registered a case based on the taxi driver’s statement. He didn’t know anything about the kidnapped person, but he handed us his luggage. We are checking the CCTV cameras in and around the airport to identify the missing person,” said a police officer attached to the Karipur station.
The police suspect a gold-smuggling connection to the incident, as kidnap cases of gold carriers who try to cheat members of the smuggling racket are frequently reported from the airport premises. Though the carriers are supposed to hand over the gold to members of the racket who usually wait outside the airport, they at times try to earn big bucks by taking the gold out of the airport -- cheating both the customs and the racket.
In such instances, racket members kidnap the carriers to get the gold back. Every week, the customs seizes thousands of grams of gold from passengers at the Karipur airport.