BENGALURU: The city police have rescued a 11-year-old boy within 24 hours of his kidnap and arrested six people on Friday. The accused had planned to demand a ransom of `1 crore from the boy’s parents, police said. The arrested are Manjunath (32) aka Bettaiah from Kunigal taluk, the main accused and mastermind, Manoj (28), Vittal (24), Shivamurthy (25), Akash (21) and Venkatesh (50). They had planned to demand ransom on Friday morning, but were arrested in the early hours of Friday.
According to police, Anesh, 11, a resident of Malleswaram 6th Cross and a student of St Joseph’s School, was returning home after attending a football coaching session on Thursday evening.
Around 6.30 pm, when he was beside a juice shop, three men — Manjunath, Manoj and Vittal — arrived in a car and kidnapped him. They tied up the boy’s arms and feet and threatened to shoot and stab him.
Additional Commissioner of Police (North) S Girish said the main accused Manjunath was the owner of the juice shop and had known Anesh for 10 years. He said a CCTV camera in the vicinity captured Vittal pushing Anesh into the car, which helped police identify the car.
According to Girish, the three accused took Anesh to a location at Hosur village in Mandya district where they met the other three persons. All the six consumed alcohol after which Manjunath and Manoj returned to their houses in Bengaluru while the other four took Anesh to Yediyur.
Anesh’s father Chetan and another relative helped police identify the car as they had seen it in the vicinity.
Girish said, “The police team went to Vyalikaval, blocked all the exits and literally went door-to-door for two hours to look for the car, after which they finally caught Manoj, the owner.” Manoj divulged the plan and also Manjunath’s whereabouts, following which the police nabbed him from his house at Subramanyanagar.
Police later nabbed the other four accused from a shed in Yediyur. They also rescued Anesh and returned him to his parents by 2 pm on Friday. Girish said there was no physical assault on Anesh and the accused had also provided him dinner.
Manjunath is believed to have hatched the plan after he noticed that the boy’s father Chetan had opened another saree shop. Anesh also regularly drank juice at Manjunath’s shop after finishing his coaching sessions.