A man who has been arrested for allegedly abducting a gang-rape accused has reportedly told the police that he had unknowingly become a beneficiary of a fraud and needed money to get out of the legal tangle.
Police said they have learned that Souvik Das Mal, a driver by profession, had plotted the abduction plan with his employer, who is the prime suspect, to extort money.
Souvik was arrested on Saturday.
The police said Sovik has confessed to the crime. “He said he had unknowingly received Rs 15 lakh in his account, which he thought was sent to him as an ‘advance’ for a contract that his employer had promised to award him in his next movie production,” said a senior officer in the detective department of Calcutta police on Sunday.
“But the money was the proceeds of a Rs 7-crore fraud allegedly committed by his employer in Mumbai,” the officer said.
“Souvik and his employer are on the wanted list of the Mumbai police. The two conspired to kidnap a man, extort money from him and pay back the victim of the mumbai fraud. To make their plan work, they also ensured that there was a rape case against the man so that when he would report the kidnapping to the police, officers would suspect that the complaint was a ploy to ensure that he was not implicated in the rape case.”
The man and his driver were allegedly kidnapped and assualted. But they managed to flee and went to Netaji Nagar police station, where they lodged an abduction complaint.
Since the two were badly injured, the cops got them admitted to MR Bangur hospital.
After that, a woman lodged a complaint with Anandapur police station saying two men — she named the abducted men — had raped her in a car.
The police started a hunt for the accused duo and learnt they were in hospital.
“Initially, we thought the abduction complaint was a ploy to mislead us. But later we realised that the men’s version was true and what the woman said was false,” the officer said. “We are looking for the woman and the prime suspect.”