Joginder Paal, 52, and Salamat Ali, 35, both apparel entrepreneurs based in the Indian capital, New Delhi, were forcibly taken to a Pokhara jungle and kept hostage for two days and three nights, string-tied at gunpoint and beaten up black and blue, immediately after they landed in Kathmandu on July 7, following sweet talks of the criminals promising a lucrative business deal for them in Nepal. [break]
In what can be termed a completely new modus operandi, for the criminal gang led by Manjeel Rai, 38, of Dehardun in India, this was the third such kidnapping in Nepal.
Paal and Ali were kept in captivity in an abandoned public building in the middle of Kalika forest while the kidnappers negotiated with the families of the hostages in India for a ransom initially worth IRs 10 million.
A special investigative team led by Sub-inspector Dipendra Chand swooped down on the kidnappers and rescued the hostages in a covert operation early Sunday morning. The Kathmandu Police made the case public Wednesday only after arresting Rai from Bouddha late on Thursday morning.
Rai, the mastermind, had employed his aides like those named Ajay and Rajesh to identify and approach on phone Paal and Ali with a proposal to start the business of antiques, Nagmani, Rudraksha and Syalsingh in Nepal. Following conversations with Ajay, Paal and Ali happened to get e-tickets of Nepal Airlines to travel to Kathmandu as a goodwill gesture from potential business partners.
As Paal and Ali arrived at TIA at 5 pm last Thursday, Rai received them and drove them in a red Santro car straight to Pokhara making the guests believe that they would first have entertainment in the tourist city before striking business deals. "We were offered good food along the way and treated well before getting to the jungle where four others were already waiting for us," Paal told Republica.
"They tied our limbs and dragged us like sacks to the deserted building. They tortured so much that we almost lost hopes of returning alive," said Ali.
Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu (MPRK) was informed about the kidnapping by a Nepali woman, who knew Paal and Ali through business. "We took up the case and followed it thoroughly," said SP Kedar Rijal, MPRK chief.
The police team was lucky enough to close in on one Santosh Ghimire, a former soldier, who single-handedly took the hostages out of the jungle and kept them at one Tirupati Hotel at Pritivi Chowk. He was kept by the Rai gang at the jungle house to guard the hostages. Ghimire who had relocated the hostages began to negotiate with the kidnappers to return the hostages for Rs 4 lakh.
The police team in the presence of family members of the hostages who came all the way from India with the ransom money arrested Ghimire at Prithivi Chwok. Later, three Indian nationals Shiva Narayan Yadav, Samel Hebram and Riya Das, the girl who lives with Rai in Nepal, and Rakesh Shakya, a Nepali, were arrested from different places in the capital.
Police said that the Rai group had earlier enacted such kidnappings of Indian traders in Nepal at least twice. Rajesh who helped them identify Paal and Ali as potential preys was himself the victim of a similar kidnapping a few months ago during which he was held hostage in a jungle in Makawanpur. But he turned out to be clever enough to free himself from their kidnappers by promising to be a part of the criminal gang.
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