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Anant Kidnapping: Rs 50 lakh found
Published on Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 19:50, Updated on Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 10:55 in 
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Noida/ New Delhi: Police on late Friday night recovered Rs 50 lakh from a person arrested in connection with the kidnapping of the son of Adobe India's CEO.
The money was found in Belana village of Kakod in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahar district after police interrogated Jitendra, who allegedly kidnapped three-year-old Anant Gupta on Monday from his Sector-15 A home in Noida.
After Anant returned home on Friday, his father Naresh Gupta told a press conference that a ransom demand of Rs 60 lakh had been made but he didn't pay the kidnappers.
Anant's uncle Lalit Gupta told CNN-IBN later in the night that the family told the UP Police's Special Task Force (STF) that they were paying Rs 50 lakh to the kidnappers and were confident that the authorities would recover the money later.
Lalit said the Gupta family had only consulted the STF and perhaps the Noida police was not informed. Police said Anant was first kept in a place in Delhi and then taken to Mathura.
Senior Superintendent of Police, STF, S K Bhagat said the kidnappers got scared that the police were closing in on them and late Thursday night they left the Mathura hideout in an autorickshaw.
Police took custody of Anant in Kakori "and according to a strategy," in the same autorickshaw, he was brought back home to Noida accompanied by a policeman.
Officials said that the prime accused in the kidnapping is Jitendra, son of a Mother Dairy milk booth owner near the Gupta residence and a resident of New Ashok Nagar in New Delhi.
Three other persons were also involved in kidnapping: Jitendra alias Babloo, a resident of New Ashok Nagar in New Delhi, Vijay Chauhan, a resident of Chauda village in Noida and Pawan, also a resident of New Ashok Nagar.
Anant was kept at Pawan’s residence after the kidnapping and then moved to Mathura. Jitendra is assisting the police in tracing the other accused, the officials said.
Officials said Kameshwar, a security guard at the Gupta household, received four calls soon after Anant was kidnapped on Monday. The calls were received at 0851 hrs IST, 0856 hrs IST, 0859 IST hrs and 0902 hrs IST.
Kameshwar told police during interrogation that the caller kept asking what was happening at the Gupta residence, whether police had been informed and what was the media doing outside.
Bhagat said that they were concerned about Anant's safety and so they didn't inform the media about their probe.
Bhagat said though the kidnappers were amateurs but could have harmed Anant. Replying to a question as to why Anant was brought in an auto rickshaw, Bhagat said: "Anant was brought as a part of our strategy. He was not alone in the auto and was escorted by a policeman. A police vehicle followed the auto."
Naresh Gupta told the press conference he cannot explain how exactly Anant came home. "There is still some confusion there and the role of the auto is still not very clear. What I can tell you is that the police wanted to adopt an aggressive strategy, but I told them that the child's safety is of the utmost importance," he said.
"Police agreed, and it was good that they did because after speaking to the kidnappers a few times we realised that they were amateurs and were coming under pressure and could do anything with all the media attention on them," Gupta said.
"They called us many times—on my wife's cell phone or on our landline. They did not want to talk to me. We could however hear the desperation in their voices increasing each time called us and that is why we had asked the media to back off from the case," he said.
"In the 10 calls that they made, we discussed things like how much money they wanted, where they wanted the money to be delivered and how they would return the child back once the money had been given. Our strategy was this that the more we speak to them, the more we could know about where they were."
"There has been some speculation by the media that the bags that left the house the other day had money in them—that is not true. Those were laptops and equipment used by the police to trace the calls and the whereabouts of the kidnappers," he said.
Gupta also said that they managed to convince the kidnappers to let them speak to Anant on Tuesday.
On police efforts to rescue Anant, Gupta said: "The police had come to know the identity of the people involved, but we decided not to reveal anything that would jeopardise the child's safety."
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