A resident of Tiljala was allegedly kidnapped and held hostage at a hotel along EM Bypass. The abductors allegedly demanded a ransom of ₹12 lakh.

Police said the victim was rescued from the hotel in the Mukundapur area and eight persons were arrested for the kidnap for ransom on Sunday. A complaint was lodged last Saturday, a day after Mohammad Irfan went missing, the police said.

On Saturday, Irfan’s family received a ransom call of ₹12 lakh. The kidnappers used
Irfan’s mobile phone to make the call.

Officers of Tiljala police station, along with the detective department of Kolkata Police, started the investigation.

“The kidnappers threatened to kill the victim if the money was not paid,” said an officer of Tiljala police
station.

Police tracked the location of the victim with the help of his cellphone’s tower location and rescued him from the hotel on Sunday.

Police identified the accused as Bibek Agarwal, Ashutosh Roy, Suraj Kumar Singh, Rohit Roy, Md Alquama, Aman Kumar Gupta, Kundan Srivastava
and David.

“During the investigation, we came to know that the victim had taken a loan from David, one of the accused who has been arrested. He failed to return the money after his call centre was closed down during a police raid, said a senior officer in Lalbazar.

“The victim used to run a call centre in Narendrapur. Police had recently raided and closed it down. The victim had failed to return the loan to David after his call centre was closed down. David planned to kidnap Irfan to recover the money. However, his plans failed as the officers rescued the victim before any ransom was paid,” said the officer.

David and his associates had kidnapped Irfan from the New Market area on June 21 in a car and taken him to multiple locations in Kasba before lodging him at the hotel in Mukundapur.

David and his seven associates have been booked under IPC sections dealing with kidnapping for ransom and criminal conspiracy.

Police said efforts were being made to arrest the other persons involved in the crime and also recover the car which was used in the crime.