HYDERABAD: As many as four persons, including two Tamil Nadu film artistes, who kidnapped a Tollywood production manager K Amarnath Reddy and made him sit nude in a car, were arrested by the Banjara Hills police on Friday.
The arrested include — V Kumara Guru (Chennai advocate), Paluru Lokesh Kumar and P K Ganesh Kumar, both Chennai cine artistes, and S Jagadish, a resident of Thiruvachur. The key accused Pradeep Natarajan, and his girlfriend Keerthana, a junior artiste are still absconding.
On February 25, Amarnath’s wife Kalpana Reddy lodged a police complaint stating that he had gone to his Madhapur office in his Swift car. Later, she received a call from her husband’s mobile and an unknown voice told her to pay a ransom of Rs 4 lakh. She was given a bank account number (Pradeep’s) to transfer the sum. Failing this, her husband would be taken to Chennai and killed, Kalpana was warned.
A special police team advised Kalpana to send photos of cash and ask the kidnappers to collect it from her. The kidnappers instructed Kalpana to come to Srinagar Colony along with the cash. Amarnath’s wife and the police team proceeded to Srinagar Colony wherein they laid a trap for the kidnappers. While she was handing over the money, the police apprehended Jagadish and interrogated him about the whereabouts of other kidnappers.
The gang was headed to Chennai via Nalgonda. The local police station of Madugulapally, Nalgonda was alerted. Three kidnappers Kumara Guru, Jagadish and Ganesh Kumar were taken into custody. A police probe revealed that Amarnath works as a make-up artiste and production manager in the Telugu film industry.
Motive behind crime
Junaid and Anu had cheated Amarnath’s friend P Venkatesham. Amarnath approached his friends Pradeep, Kumara Guru and Lokesh Kumar for some money to lend the victim. Amarnath later lodged a plaint against Junaid and Anu. However, he avoided paying back Pradeep and others. The accused therefore hatched a plan to kidnap Amarnath.