BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to earn some easy money and support his extravagant lifestyle, a BTech final year student of a private college here allegedly staged his own abduction to extort Rs 13 lakh from his parents residing in Paralsinga village of Kalahandi district.
Police said 22-year-old Tusar Manthan contacted his father Sanjaya Manthan over phone on Tuesday evening claiming he had been kidnapped by some unidentified miscreants and they were demanding `13 lakh ransom for his release.
Sanjaya lodged a complaint in this regard with Info Valley police a day later on Wednesday. Basing on the complaint, police registered a case and launched an investigation into the matter. A special police team was immediately formed to trace Tusar.
Based on technical inputs, human intelligence and swift ground action, the team successfully traced Tusar from a house near the panchayat office in Madanpur, within an hour.
After tracing him, police questioned his associates, who helped him stage the abduction, following which it was established that the entire kidnapping plot was fake. Investigation revealed Tusar had developed extravagant spending habits. Accordingly, he devised the fake kidnapping plot to meet his lofty expenses.
“Tusar contacted his parents using his mobile phone and claimed that he had been abducted. His plan was to make easy money by deceiving his parents through his hoax kidnapping plan. He was handed over to his parents after due legal formalities,” said an officer of Info Valley police station.