The kidnapping case of a man from Uttar Pradesh‘s Kanpur city took a tragic turn after police officials informed his family that his abductors murdered him.
The 28 year old’s family had called out the police a week back for not being able to stop the accused group from running away with the bag of Rs.30 lakh ransom even when heavy force was present in the vicinity. Now, police says that the kidnappers had killed the man last month itself. Even after the claim, his body has still not been found.
Police denied the involvement of any money and said that the kidnappers weren’t given the alleged cash. Four cops, who were a part of the case, including IPS officer Aparna Gupta, have been suspended.
The victim, Sanjeet Yadav, used to work as a technician in a private pathology lab in Kanpur and was kidnapped last month. After a two-hour long protest by the man’s family outside Kanpur police chief Dinesh Kumar P’s office, the official ordered for an investigation in the case. The clan alleged that the police forced them to get Rs.30 lakh for the random and hand it over to the kidnappers. Furthermore, the accused fled from the scene with the money while the police did nothing to stop them. They dint get Sanjeet back even after giving the money.
The family even said the police “pressured” them to say the media that “no money was taken from them.” Hailing from a middle class background, they said that was extremely tough for them to arrange the money and they had done so by selling their house and all the jewelry they possessed, yet the cops could not do their job and instead forced them to say things which could hide their faults.
The police said on Thursday that they arrested some people in the case which include Sanjeet’s “friends” and “ex-colleagues”.
Dinesh Kumar P, Senior Superintendent of Police, Kanpur spoke to the media on Thursday and said, “On June 23, a missing complaint was filed by the family of SanjeetYadav. It was turned into a first information report (FIR) on June 26. Three days later, the family received a ransom call. A special team of crime branch and other officers was looking into the case. Some people were arrested on Thursday; they were Sanjeet’s friends and had earlier worked with him. It is suspected they had killed him on June 26 or 27. Now, teams have been formed to find the body.”
The family was hoping that even after the failed attempts to catch the kidnappers, they would be able to reunite with Sanjeet. However, their dreams were crushed when the police informed them about his murder. Recorded visuals of the family showed them breaking down and consoling each other after receiving the news.
They had received more than 15 ransom calls and had reported the same to the police, yet neither were the calls tracked nor were the kidnappers hunted down.
Last week, Sanjeet’s sister told reporters: “We had earlier approached Aparna Gupta, an IPS officer in-charge of the area, and asked her to arrange for the bag with the ransom money to be tracked. She had assured us that all arrangements would be made.”
“But they made us pay the money and my brother has also not been released. The police kept saying we will get back the money even if it was handed over. But the first priority is to recover your family member. A police team was with us at all the time. The kidnappers kept on talking to my father for 30 minutes on the phone before the ransom was taken. He made my father throw the money bag from the top of a flyover on a road below. Did the police not anticipate all this?” she had asked.
IPS officer Aparna Gupta had then claimed “the allegations against the police are false”, and said that “their teams were trying to crack the case”.
Dinesh Kumar P had assured that action will be taken against officials who are found to be guilty in the case, he said, “If anyone has erred from our side, we will punish them. If any money has been exchanged, that money will be recovered for sure.”
“The family is claiming that they have given the ransom amount of Rs 30 lakh to the kidnappers. As per the investigation till now, we found that no ransom amount has been given,still we are probing the case from all angles,” Inspector General of Police (Kanpur range) MohitAgarwal had said.
The opposition slammed the Yogi government for providing absolutely no protection to the people of the state. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra criticized saying, “In Uttar Pradesh, law and order has crumbled… people are losing lives. Whether it’s home, office, nobody feels safe anymore. After Vikram Joshi, now SanjeetYadav’s murder in Kanpur,” she tweeted.
“According to the reports, police got kidnappers the ransom and then he was murdered. This is a new age of “rule of goons”. In this age, law and order has surrendered in front of goons,” she wrote in another post.
Vikram Joshi, a journalist from Ghaziabad, was shot in the head in front of his daughters when he was riding back home with them on his bike on Wednesday. His attackers shot bullets in his head and escaped after thrashing him on the ground and brutally punching him. He later succumbed to his injuries and died.
