A man who was allegedly abducted by a gang of six has been arrested along with the accused.

Reason: the alleged abductors told the police that the man had taken Rs 10.5 lakh from them and their acquaintances after promising to get them jobs in the military.

The six men had allegedly dragged Sashi Bhusan Dikshit, a resident of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, into an SUV near Sunny Park in Ballygunge on Saturday afternoon and sped off.

Some of those who were alerted by Dikshit’s screams and saw him being forcibly taken into the SUV called Ballygunge police station. One of the witnesses also gave the SUV’s registration number to officers of the police station.

The cops immediately circulated the number to all police stations in the city and adjoining areas and also identified the owner of the vehicle using the number.

A team from Bidhannagar City Police spotted an SUV bearing the number on VIP Road and intercepted it. “The cops took the vehicle and the seven men, including the man who was abducted, to the airport police station,” said an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate.

Around the same time, officers of Ballygunge police station tracked down the SUV owner’s phone number, which they found in a government database, to a location near the airport.

“We got in touch with the airport police station and were told that the men were all there,” an officer of Ballygunge police station said.

“The abductors said Dikshit had taken Rs 10.5 lakh from them and their acquaintances with the promise of providing them military jobs. When they realised they had been duped, they planned to abduct him. All seven have been arrested — Dikshit for cheating the rest.”

The alleged abductors are Jitendra Prasad, 27, Sonpal Singh Sisodia, 18, Satindar Singh, 20, Munna Singh, 45, Chandan Kumar Poddar, 28 and Pradip Singh, 35. Sonpal and Satindar are from Agra and the rest from various places in Bengal.