Pathankot Police follow financial trail to arrest kidnappers in Goa

The Pathankot police on Friday arrested two men for allegedly abducting the son of a prominent businessman last week.

The accused—Amit Rana, a suspended BSF constable, and Rishab alias Sonu, a JCB operator—were arrested from Goa after the police persistently followed their financial transactions for several days and zeroed in on them.

On August 30, Maahir Bhandari, son of Badal Bhandari, was abducted by two persons when he had just reached his home from school. The accused had allegedly demanded Rs 2 crore ransom from the family.

According to officials, the accused had fled towards Nurpur in Himachal Pradesh with the child and later sensing that the cops were hot on their trail, they decided to leave Maahir at a secluded spot from where the police later recovered him.

The Pathankot and the Himachal police had worked in tandem to locate the whereabouts of the child.

SSP Daljinder Singh Dhillon said the accused, in an attempt to trick the investigators, had purchased a car from Chandigarh for the purpose of committing the crime.

“They cleverly created a replica in which the car used in the crime was similar to a car parked in Chamba (HP). The model, make, colour and registration number of the car used by the accused bore exact similarities to the Chamba based car. “It was a red-herring to divert our attention,” said a police official.

Officials said after committing the crime, the accused reached Goa by road via Ahmedabad, Surat, Baroda and Mumbai.

Police followed the financial trail to track down the accused. Some of their accomplices in Chandigarh and Himachal would deposit money into their accounts which would be withdrawn by the accused using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

“The accused were travelling in a bus and our team, who were following them in a car, forced the bus to stop. It was with the help of the Goa police that we managed to nab them,” added the SSP.