Jaipur, May 21 (IANS) Fearing a poor exam result, a Class X student from Udaipur in Rajasthan choreographed his own "abduction" for ransom, but was outsmarted by police which recovered him and finally reunited with his family on Monday.
The teenager had gone missing for two days from his house, and was found travelling on a train when he was caught.
Interestingly, the boy used an app he had downloaded from the web to make a ransom call to his father, which showed the incoming call to be from an international number via the Internet.
Udaipur Superintendent of Police Rajendra Prasad Goyal said the boy's father Rajesh Kumar Pandey filed an FIR on Sunday at Gowardhanvilas police station that his son was missing since May 19 afternoon.
"We tried to contact the boy on his mobile phone many times but it is switched off. We also spoke to his friends, but they were clueless on his whereabouts," Rajesh said.
He said that on April 20 morning, he received a call from an international number wherein the person at the other end demanded Rs 50 lakh to ensure his son's safe return.
"When I demanded to talk to my son, my son took the call and claimed some unidentified miscreants had driven him off in a car to an unidentified place and were holding him captive in a room.
"After some time, I got another call from the international number wherein I was asked about the ransom money. I told them that I don't have this much money. The person at the other end then asked me to arrange Rs 3 lakh and then call him," said the complainant, adding that the phone was later found switched off.
The SP formed different teams under the supervision of Additional SP Brijesh Soni and senior police officer Om Kumar, which scanned CCTV footage from near the family's residence and public places like railway station and bus stops.
The team came across footage wherein the teenager was seen roaming all alone at the Udaipur railway station and afterwards boarding Delhi-bound Chetak Express.
Special police teams were dispatched to Delhi, from where the boy was recovered and brought back.
When questioned, the teenager claimed he was scared that he would be beaten up by his parents if he fared poorly in his examinations. So, he hatched a plan for his own "abduction" and called up his father with the ransom demand to hoodwink him.
However, police outsmarted him with meticulous investigation and exposed his plan.
--IANS
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