Girl, 2 aides held for kidnapping friend

Belagavi, Apr 20: Luck ran out for an engineering college dropout who kidnapped her friend from an affluent family for a ransom of Rs 5 crore, along with two accomplices, landing them all behind bars. The police rescued the victim on Wednesday, two days after the kidnap.

Divya Malghan, a resident of Gadag, abducted Arpita Naik, 22, eighth -semester civil engineering student at Gogte Institute of Technology here and native of Dharwad, who resides at Bella Vista gated residential complex, Nanawadi, here.

Briefing reporters, DCP (law and order) Radhika G said Divya, a resident of Mudhol in Bagalkot district and former student of the college, accompanied by her friends Kedar Hanumantrao Patil and Sumit alias Bablu Gangappa Nabhapur, residents of Gadag, came to the city on Monday, hatching plans to kidnap Arpita, daughter of retired PWD?engineer Govind Pandappa Naik.

An unsuspecting Arpita accompanied the suspects to a restaurant in the city on Monday night, where after dinner, the trio served her tender coconut laced with sleeping pills. Arpita, who partially consumed the drink, discarded it on finding it to be bitter. Soon, she fell unconscious.

The trio drove Arpita in a car to her house. Finding the girl unconscious, they took her to Gadag and made her inhale chloroform, so that she does not regain consciousness. The next morning, Arpita’s mother called up her daughter and Divya, but their phones were unreachable. In the afternoon, Arpita’s father received a call from her, saying she had been kidnapped, the police officer said.

Kedar then snatched Arpita’s phone and claimed to be an associate of the D (Dawood Ibrahim) company and told the girl’s father that he had kidnapped both Arpita and Divya and demanded the ransom. Naik then approached the police, who formed four teams to nab the kidnappers.