Five months on, Mumbai ethical hacker rescued from kidnappers

An ethical hacker, Manish Bangale, who had hogged the limelight in 2016 after he accused a former Maharashtra minister of allegedly having links with Mumbai blast mastermind Dawood Ibrahim, was rescued by the UT police from his kidnappers after five months.

According to UT SSP Kanwardeep Kaur, on Tuesday evening, a police patrol near Fragrance Garden noticed a man in a car signalling for help. As officers chased the car, the two suspects attempted to flee, but were apprehended near the ISBT, Sector 43.

The victim, identified himself as Manish Bangale, a resident of Maharashtra. His kidnappers have been identified as Ranjit Singh (50) from Gurdaspur and Ravi Sharma (35) from Hoshiarpur.

The victim revealed that his kidnappers reportedly contacted him through a WhatsApp group, claiming they wanted to hire him for data scrapping services. After being promised Rs 6 lakh, Bangale flew to Amritsar on April 26, where he was kidnapped the same day and held hostage.

The kidnappers asked him to hack bank accounts and transfer money into their accounts. Bangale claimed he didn’t hack the accounts but was forced to carry out other illegal cyber activities by his kidnappers. He was tortured in the captivity. He made multiple attempts to escape, but was unsuccessful as the kidnappers frequently changed locations across Punjab.

In August, while being in the kidnappers’ captivity in Ferozepur, Bangale managed to lay hands on the phone of one of the kidnappers and sent a hoax email to the Amritsar airport authorities. The email demanded Rs 1 crore and threatened to detonate six bombs at the airport if the money wasn’t delivered. The victim hoped his action would lead the police to his location. Although one of the kidnappers was arrested, the group moved him to other place before police could reach to them.

The police said since September 15, Bangale had been held captive in a hotel at Nayagaon. He was regularly brought to Chandigarh by his captors. Ranjit faces nine cases of cheating and forgery in Punjab and HP.

Had accessed Dawood phone calls

In 2016, Bangale had claimed to have accessed the phone calls between Dawood and a politician by hacking into the authentication process of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), which allegedly gave him access to Dawood’s telephone records. Bangale was later booked by the Mumbai Police for allegedly defaming the minister.

Sent hoax mail to lead cops to kidnappers

In August, while being in the kidnappers’ captivity in an industrial site of Ferozepur, Bangale managed to lay hands on the phone of one of the kidnappers and sent a hoax email to the Amritsar airport authorities. The email demanded Rs 1 crore and threatened to detonate six bombs at the airport if the money wasn’t delivered. The victim hoped his action would lead the police to his location.