Mohali: Mastermind in Chandigarh University kidnapping case hatched the plot after learning of victim’s wealthy family

It all began with a casual chat among friends. A female friend of Atharv Dhiman, 19, a first-year B.Tech student at Chandigarh University (CU), had told her friends that Atharv came from a financially well-off family. Little did she know that by doing so, she was putting Atharv’s safety at risk.

Abhay, a BBA first-year student who was one of her friends, saw this as an opportunity to gain easy money. Together with his four friends, including Raghav, a B-Pharmacy student, and Poorav, a second-year BBA student, Abhay hatched a conspiracy to kidnap Atharv to extort ₹1.5 lakh from his family.

But as luck would have it, the day the accused executed their plan, the female friend saw Atharv being thrashed and bundled into the car and immediately raised the alarm following which the victim’s other friends informed the police. Acting swiftly, the cops started trailing the accused.

A cop investigating the case said, “Abhay did not himself join the kidnappers and witnessed the crime from a distance as the said female friend was with the victim at the time. When Abhay got to know that Atharv’s friends have approached the police, he alerted the kidnappers who abandoned the victim near a canal in Ropar and fled in different directions.”

As per the victim’s father, Amit Dhiman, who runs a hardware shop in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, his son had made a distress call to them around 6.01 pm on April 17, informing them that he had been kidnapped. He also told them that the kidnappers were demanding ₹1.5 lakh ransom, which they wanted to be transferred into his account.

“My son made over 20 calls to us in the four hours that he was in captivity. We heard the kidnappers abusing him over phone. My son was also physically assaulted. They also threatened to kill him if we failed to arrange the money,” Dhiman had told the police, adding that the kidnappers had also filmed an objectionable video of a son to blackmail him.

Mastermind Abhay, 2 others still on the run

While police have already arrested accused Raghav and Poorav, mastermind Abhay and two others continue to be on the run.

Raghav was arrested from outside the university on Saturday while Poorav was nabbed from the campus on Friday.

As per officials, two of the absconding accused have switched off their mobiles and also taken Poorav’s phone with them.

Police have already recovered the car used in the crime, a white Creta bearing registration number PB-12AE-1091, which belongs to the accused Raghav. All the accused have been expelled from the university.

The FIR has been registered against five accused under Sections 140(3) (kidnapping), 308(2) (extortion), 351(1) (criminal intimidation), 351(3) ( deals with criminal intimidation, specifies the punishment for threatening to cause death, grievous hurt, property destruction, or other serious crimes), 3(5) (act done by more than one person) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Sadar Kharar police station.