Kidnap kingpin was wannabe actor

New Delhi: Two days after three year-old Anant Gupta, son of Adobe CEO Naresh Gupta, returned home safely, Uttar Pradesh police on Sunday arrested the abduction's mastermind Chhatrapal Singh who confessed before the media that he did it for ransom.

The question of how the child reached home on Friday, however, still remains unanswered. Chhatrapal says that he did not know how it happened and Anant's father points out that police is reticent about disclosing details because of the legal processes involved.

Chattarpal Singh alias Dev was arrested from Sector 16 in Noida and a mobile phone used by him and his associate Pawan, who is still on the run, for making ransom calls to the Gupta family, was recovered, Police announced at a press conference.

Senior Superintendent of Police of Noida R K S Rathore said Chattarpal and Pawan kidnapped the boy on Monday from near his residence in sector 15A and took him to various locations in western UP during four days.

He claimed Jitendra, who was arrested on Friday, and Vijay Pal Chauhan, who was apprehended in Panipat on late Saturday night, have no direct role in the abduction.

Chhatrapal and Pawan used a stolen motorcycle for the abduction and had been in constant touch with the Gupta family while they were constantly shifting their hide-outs from Hardoi in UP to a temple in Mathura, the SSP said.

Chattarpal had demanded Rs 50 lakh ransom from Guptas and instructed the cash be thrown from a train at Mathura Railways station on Thursday night, he said.

According to the police, Chattarpal collected a bag containing the money which was flung out of the train by Gupta's brother-in-law Lalit.

To back their claim, police presented Chattarpal at the press conference where he spoke at length about how he had executed the kidnapping and aired a taped conversation between him and Nidhi Gupta, the mother of Anant.

The police elaborated in detail the sequence of events that took place after the kidnapping. However, they failed to answer questions regarding the return of Anant in an autorickshaw on Friday. Rathore said, "I have nothing to add as the officers have briefed you regarding this earlier".

He said Chattarpal was an "over ambitious" person who wanted to try his hands in acting and had hatched the conspiracy to kidnap the boy taking inspiration from films and TV serials.

Chattarpal, who claimed to have acted in a tele-film, said he, alonwgith Pawan, had decided to abduct the child from sector 15A as it where several affluent families lived.

While ruling out that Jitendra and Chauhan had any direct role in the crime, police added two more names - Sunil, at whose residence in Hardoi Chhatrapal stayed, and his accomplice Pawan.

On being persistently asked to divulge details regarding the recovery of the child, police said they have already presented the main accused to the media.

Interestingly, Panipat Police, who arrested Vijay Pal Chauhan, outside a PCO late last night, said that during interrogation, Chauhan said though he knew the kidnappers, he was not involved in the abduction of Anant.

Naresh Gupta, who also answered questions at the press conference, said the priority was to ensure the safe release of his son and any attempt to go for "forced recovery" would have harmed him.

"The idea was to get the child released safely and recover the money as we already knew that the offenders were amateur," Gupta said.

In response to the question, which was left unanswered by the police and Chattarpal, that how his son reached home, Gupta said the case was not over as some of the accused are still at large. Those arrested in the case were to be produced in the court for facing the trial, he said.

Lauding the efforts of UP Special Task Force, Gupta said he was also in constant touch with the state government and had contacted a California-based consultant for help.

The consultant had advised against going for forced recovery as the offenders could have panicked and harmed the victim, Gupta said.

Initially, both the police and Gupta had denied paying any ransom. However, police later said they had seized Rs 47.5 lakh from the residence of Jitendra who was arrested on Friday.

(With agency inputs)

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