A 28-year-old man from Nepal was allegedly lured to Calcutta with the promise of a work visa of Portugal and kept confined in guest houses in Chinar Park and Salt Lake by two men.
Shakti Khanal, who police said was forced to call his family to convey a ransom demand of Rs 3 lakh to them, was rescued early on Wednesday.
A team from Baguiati police station and the Bidhannagar commissionerate’s detective department rescued Khanal, from Nepal’s Jhapa district, from a guest house in Salt Lake.
The two accused, who were arrested from the guest house, have been identified as Debojyoti Das, a resident of Nayapatti, on the fringes of Salt Lake, and Akash Mondal, from Chakdah in Nadia.
An officer said Shakti’s brother Saroj visited Baguiati police station around midnight on Tuesday and asked officers to rescue his brother. Saroj told the officers about the ransom call the family received on Tuesday morning.
“The man said his brother Shakti had left home on June 3. After reaching Kolkata, he called his family saying he had put up at a guest house in Chinar Park,” said the officer.
However, he made another call shortly after the first one and told family members that he was facing some difficulties in Kolkata.
After this there was no communication from him till Tuesday, the officer said.
On Tuesday morning, Saroj received a WhatsApp call from Shakti, who said he had been abducted and needed to transfer Rs 3 lakh to a bank account to secure his release.
Saroj also received an image of a leaf from a cheque book of the account where the money was to be wired. “The account was in a Salt Lake branch of a bank. We could collect details of the account holder,” an officer said.
“The last tower location of Shakti’s phone was in Salt Lake. We zeroed in on its location. The youth was lured to the city with the promise of a work visa of Portugal.”