Kanpur paan shop owner Chaman Lal Yadav, who claims to have paid a Rs 30-lakh ransom under police guidance after the kidnappers had killed his son Sanjeet, has demanded a CBI probe into police collusion in the crime.

He has also alleged that the police tried to frame his daughter Ruchi in the crime, and that officers had misbehaved with him at police stations.

“The police were involved in the kidnapping, murder and ransom collection. Any probe by the Uttar Pradesh police will therefore be an eyewash. I want a central agency, preferably the CBI, to investigate,” Chaman told reporters on Sunday.

“I’m sure that many senior police officers would be exposed if the probe is done honestly.”

Sanjeet, 28, a pathology lab technician, was abducted on June 22. When the kidnappers walked away from under the police’s nose after collecting what Chaman says was a Rs 30-lakh ransom on July 13, the family accused the force of being in cahoots with the gang.

They repeated the allegation when it emerged on July 24, after a few arrests, that Sanjeet was already dead when the “ransom” was handed over.

Additional superintendent of police (Kanpur South) Aparna Gupta, suspended on July 24, claims the bag tossed towards the kidnappers from atop a Kanpur flyover was stuffed with clothes and contained no money.

Chaman had on Saturday met additional director-general of police B.P. Jogdand, who is probing whether ransom was actually paid, and told him the police had treated him badly throughout.

“I had visited Aparna’s office in the first week of July. She shouted at me that she had more important tasks in hand than my case,” Chaman told reporters.

Besides Aparna and circle officer Manoj Gupta, two sub-inspectors and six constables were suspended on Friday after the arrest of three kidnappers and their revelation that Sanjeet had been killed and thrown into the Ganga on June 26.

“I was crying and begging Aparna to save my son but she asked her staff to throw me out. After a few days, I called Manoj Gupta, who asked me to come to Barra police station,” Chaman said.

“When I did, the investigating officer, inspector Ranjeet Rai, was with him. While I was requesting the CO (circle officer) to bring my son back, Rai started shouting at me and said my elder daughter, Ruchi, was behind the kidnapping. Rai declared that I would be in deep trouble if I kept visiting police officers.”

He added: “Rai opened his diary and gave the mobile number of a purported kidnapper to the CO. I don’t know what happened thereafter. But the number Rai gave to the CO was different from the number from which I was receiving the ransom calls.”

Chaman says the kidnappers had made 21 calls to him between June 23 and July 10.

Ruchi said: “The police can do anything. They can say I kidnapped my brother and killed him. The government will suspend and later reinstate the officers. Again, someone will be kidnapped for ransom. We want the officers involved in the crime arrested, and are therefore demanding a CBI probe.”

Senior superintendent of police Dinesh Kumar P, who was transferred from Kanpur to Jhansi on Saturday, had suspended Rai on July 14 after the “ransom” fiasco the previous day.

A team of 35 divers has so far failed to find Sanjeet’s body.