Driver stages kidnapping of employer's children to extort money, says Mumbai Police

A driver and his relative were arrested from suburban Andheri for allegedly staging kidnapping of two children of a builder, for whom he worked, in a bid to extort Rs 1 crore, police said on Wednesday. During the interrogation, the driver admitted that he had hatched the conspiracy of kidnapping the twin children to get money for his daughter’s marriage, an official said. “The incident came to light when the father of the children, a real estate developer, approached the police on Monday evening with the complaint that his two kids had been kidnapped,” he said. “He said the twins were abducted after his driver was beaten by the kidnappers when they were on their way back to home in Juhu,” the official said. A kidnapper forcibly opened the door of the car and allegedly threatened the children and the driver and took their car near Juhu PVR area, the complaint said. During the journey, the kidnapper gave sedatives to the children and the driver. It said the kidnapper got down with one child and the driver and put them in a school bus, while another child was kept in the car near Juhu PVR," he added. After that, six kidnappers on three bikes took the car driver out of the bus and took him on Juhu-Versova Road and allegedly thrashed him, the complaint said. By that time, a police team reached the Juhu PVR area and rescued one child, while the second child escaped with the help of people and alerted his family members about the incident. “Meanwhile, the mother of the twins had received a call with the callers seeking Rs 1 crore,” the police official said. " But as there were loose ends in the complaint, the police started interrogating the car driver. After questioning him for 18 hours, he told the police that he had staged the kidnapping drama to get Rs 1 crore from his master for his daughter’s marriage," he said. The accused driver also had called one of his relative from Delhi to be part of the conspiracy and had promised him half of the extortion money, he said. Police have arrested both the accused and claimed to have cracked the case. An FIR was registered at DN Nagar Police Station under various sections of the IPC.