Ex-cop rescued as wife gets abductors to share location

SHAMLI: A retired Punjab police officer was rescued within six hours after being kidnapped in Bareilly, when his wife transferred Rs 1.5 lakh via UPI and secured the kidnappers' location under the pretext of arranging further payment.

On Sept 2, Darshan Singh, 55, a former assistant sub-inspector from Suchethgarh village in Kapurthala, was travelling to a gurdwara in Rampur when he was abducted by six men near Lal Phatak bridge in Bareilly.

The gang, travelling in a van and on a motorcycle, offered him a lift before robbing him of his watch and Rs 64,000. They held him captive in a forested area near Kandharpur and contacted his family using his phone to make ransom demands via video calls. His wife sent Rs 1.5 lakh in four UPI instalments, after which the gang demanded an additional Rs 1.5 lakh. "I told them I needed their location to send more money, and they shared it," Singh's wife said - whose name has been withheld by the police for security reasons as four suspects are on the run. She then passed the details to Singh's brother, Balwind, who had reached Bareilly.

Balwind alerted police, who tracked the suspects' movements along Babhiya-Umarsia road using surveillance. Bareilly Cantt police then rescued Singh and arrested two men - Akash Kumar, 23, a painter from Shergarh, and Virendra Pal, 22, a coconut water vendor. A motorcycle used in the crime was also seized.

"The kidnappers assumed WhatsApp and video calls couldn't be tracked," said SP city Bareilly Manush Pareek.

Four others - Devraj alias Sonu, Rahul, Manoj Sahu, and Abhishek alias Puchchi - remain at large. Investigations are ongoing.