TURA: A middle-aged grocery store owner who was kidnapped by a gang of criminals on Monday night from Williamnagar town in East Garo Hills has been released after police swooped down on the abductors during the ransom payment on Tuesday night.
Trader Ajit Kundu was returning home with his young son after closing his grocery shop the previous night when three men accosted him near his home and took him away in an Alto car along with his bag containing seventy thousand rupees. The young son of the trader was left behind unharmed.
The kidnappers called up the family of the victim the same night and demanded fifty lakh rupees as ransom for his safe release.
When the family expressed their inability to pay the ransom the kidnappers scaled it down to ten lakhs and ordered them to arrange the money by Tuesday afternoon threatening to kill Kundu unless the family paid up the same day.
Williamnagar police intercepted the negotiations between the gang and the victim’s family and dispatched a special team to the rendezvous place at Samanda from where they were again directed to head back towards Chisobibra village, not far from the district headquarters.
At Chisobibra four young men approached the police team who were in civilian disguise after spotting them carry a plastic bag in which the ransom money was supposed to be placed.
However, the gang began to flee after realising that the men were not family members but police personnel who began to give them chase. The police personnel also opened blank fire in the air asking them to halt but to no avail.
The kidnappers continued their run and jumped into the nearby Simsang river swimming away to escape the police dragnet.
Not far from the site of the encounter, two other gang members who were holding trader Kundu panicked on hearing the gunshots and abandoned their captive to flee to safety. He was rescued unharmed sometime later.
