An eight-year-old boy from Dakshina Kannada, who was kidnapped on December 17, was rescued from Kolar on Saturday. The gang of abductors sought ransom in bitcoins, the police said and they have now been arrested.The police have arrested six persons with this case who were with the boy in connection to the case. They are tech-savvy, the police added.
The arrested have been identified as Ranjith (20) and Hanumanthu (21), both residents of Mandya; Gangadhar (25), a resident of Mysuru; Kamal (22), a resident of Electronic City who works as mechanic in Bengaluru; and Manjunath (24) and Mahesh (26), both from Kolar. Ranjith, Hanumanthu, Gangadhar and Kamal were the abductors while Manjunath and Mahesh helped the abductors in Kolar.
The police however said that the main accused in the case is yet to be arrested. "We will know the exact details only after the main accused is apprehended. The others apprehended were all just hired for the job," investigating police said.
The boy was traced to Kurnahosahalli hamlet in Malur of Kolar district, which is 54 kms from Bengaluru and he was reunited with his family in Belthangady, Dakshina Kannada, police said. The case gained public attention due to the abductors demanding ransom in bitcoins, a kind of digital cryptocurrency.
The police said that at around 5 am on Saturday morning, after ensuring that the kidnappers and inmates in the house were fast asleep, the joint police team of Kolar and Dakshina Kannada districts raided the house and rescued the boy from the clutches of his kidnappers.
Anubhav, son of Bijoy and grandson of an ex-serviceman Shivan, had been abducted on Thursday evening by the occupants of an Indica car bearing a yellow number plate.
The kidnappers had demanded ransom of 100 bitcoins, valued around Rs 17 crore initially and later the gang kept revising their demand downward from Rs 17 crore to Rs 10 Crore and finally "agreed" for Rs 25 lakhs.
The abductors had wanted the ransom in bitcoins as it would be difficult to trace the transaction, Dakshina Kannada superintendent of police Laxmi Prasad told reporters here.
Deputy Superintendent of Police, Bantwala Subdivision, Valentine D'souza who led the four teams comprising of 20 policemen to track this case said that after the boy was kidnapped at around 6:30 pm on Thursday from near his house, the police took this up as a challenge since this is the first time in the state any kidnapper had demanded ransom in a virtual currency.
He added that the Bantwal police first tracked down how they got a whiff about the child, whose father had been dealing in bitcoins since 2016.
"This gang had kept track of the movement of the family for quite some time and they cultivated a few friends in the process here. One of them happened to reveal that this gang had inquired a lot about the father and his dealings, which co-related with our investigations too," the Dy. SP said.
Another police officer said that the gang had developed contact with a local autorickshaw driver, and through him they collected all the information. He not only helped the police get their original number but also tracked them through CCTV footage.
The police added that the panicked gang took NH-73, that connects Belthangady, Mangaluru and Tumkuru, the police followed them here and they took shelter in Kurnahosahalli, which is a hamlet of just about 150 houses and a population of less than 1000 people.
"This village is strategically located where one can easily slip to Chennai or towards Andhra Pradesh," the police said.