Kidnappers in 2008

A majority of the kidnappings done in the city have a personal motive behind them. The kidnappers are either distant relatives, friends of the victim’s family or business rivals. The city, which reported 84 cases of kidnapping and extortion last year, has a history of kidnappings some of which have even gone unreported. “When gangsters like Asai Thambi and Vellai Ravi were active, they used to do professional kidnapping. They operated in a professional way and in many kidnapping cases, the victims’ families would not even come out to complain. Vellai Ravi’s bid to collect a huge ransom by kidnapping a businessman had led to his death in a police encounter. After their death, we really do not have such professional kidnappers operating in the city,” assistant commissioner of police, Jayakumar told TOI. A Central Bureau of Investigation team in April nabbed a four-member gang—Thilagaraj, Kutty Suresh, Balaji alias Aiyyar and Bala alias Balasubramaniam—who had kidnapped R Narayanan, director of a software firm in the city, and later killed him in Andhra Pradesh as they could not get the ransom. The police had also arrested another notorious kidnapper Mayakannan and his gang from Red Hills in May, when he kidnapped a businessman in Otteri for ransom. He had 16 cases of kidnapping and robbery against him when he was arrested. In 2008, the city police had a few other cases of kidnapping, which they cracked in no time. In most of these cases, the kidnappers were either business rivals of the victim or private financiers who were trying to collect a loan. On July 29, the city police arrested five persons, including a business partner of the victim’s father, within two hours of the kidnap drama and rescued the boy. The gang had called up the boy’s father and demanded a ransom of Rs 15,000 and later struck a deal for Rs 6,000. The police knew it was an amateur gang as they demanded too low a ransom. The police arrested the accused when they came to collect the amount from the boy’s parent. “In kidnap cases, we let the parents have continuous conversation with the kidnappers. We tell the parents to accept their demand and pay the ransom. We then have our team ready at the spot where the ransom is supposed to be given. If we cannot locate them by then, we arrest them when they come to collect the money. In most of the cases, the chief himself comes to collect the money and once we catch him, the others lose confidence and release the victim. We also trace the calls made by the kidnappers and identify their location,” a senior official said.

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