TN bizman, staff abducted from Delhi rescued by Haryana special task force

The special task force (STF) of the Haryana police, with the help of Delhi Police’s special cell, on Friday night rescued a yarn manufacturer-cum-exporter from Tamil Nadu and his staff, who were lured into coming to Delhi for a multi-crore international yarn deal and then abducted and held captive for ₹50 lakh ransom, from Shyam Nagar in Delhi, said police officials on Saturday.

STF officials said the suspects took advantage of the sudden slump in the market price of processed yarn in south India to lure the manufacturer to come to Delhi by concocting a fictitious story that a Bangladesh-based yarn businessman wanted to make a purchase in bulk for importing yarn into his country and was ready to pay a good price.

The victims have been identified as KS Vilvapathy Babu (56) and his accounts manager Vinod Kumar (28). The STF also arrested five people--K Jirvani Babu, a native of Tamil Nadu, Asif Hussain, Mohammad Azad, Mohamad Karim and Mohamad Sonu-- for abducting the duo.

B Satheesh Balan, inspector general of police for Haryana STF, said, “It was Jirvani who had gathered Vilvapathy’s contact number from a website of yarn manufacturers and exporters and contacted him a fortnight ago by introducing himself as Shiv Kumar. Jirvani was successful in winning Vilvapathy’s confidence as he showed vast knowledge about the yarn industry and spoke in Tamil too. They exchanged photographs of quality yarn to strike a deal.”

According to Balan, Vilvapathy had a stock of finished yarn worth ₹5 crore, which he was unable to sell due to a sudden slump in the market. Jirvani offered to help him get his stock cleared through a trader from Bangladesh, which is a hub of yarn and textile industry.

Balan said Jirvani even proposed to come to Delhi and was ready to get tickets booked but Vilvapathy said he would come at his own expense. Hence, he and his accounts manager Vinod Kumar boarded a flight from their hometown in Madurai around 2pm on Thursday and landed at Indira Gandhi International airport in Delhi around 6:10pm.

Police said the two suspects waited outside the airport in a car and first brought the duo to Gurugram. They roamed around in Gurugram for a couple of hours to confuse the victims and then turned towards Delhi again. They tied their limbs and kept them in a small room in Shyam Nagar. It is then that Vilvapathy realized that they have been abducted.

The IG said that after the abduction, Jirvani asked Vilvapathy to only contact his friends to arrange ₹50 lakh ransom. The abductors had allegedly asked the businessman to inform his friends and family to get the ransom transacted to Delhi from Tamil Nadu using hawala racket.

“Vilvapathy showed presence of mind and rang his daughter’s father-in-law in Madurai on Friday morning. He addressed him by the position he held in his own company in place of addressing him as ‘samdhi’ (in-law) while asking to arrange ₹50 lakh and informed him that he was in Haryana. He also directed him to contact Sakthi Perumal in Delhi, an outfit which works for Tamilians. This father-in-law was alerted and he immediately called his family members and Sakthi Perumal suspecting foul play. Soon, Tamil Nadu police was informed and its south zone IG Asra Garg contacted Haryana STF for rescue operation,” Balan said.

Negotiations went on with the abductors to fix a place in Delhi for picking up the ransom money, said police. “They had initially fixed the busy Khan Market for the job. But through friends and family, we got it changed to Malay Mandir parking...As soon as Hussain came to pick up the money, he was nabbed. He later took the STF team to the house in Shyam Nagar, from where we rescued the businessman and his staff,” said Balan.

The IG said the suspects used toy pistols to threaten the victims and tied cylindrical capacitors used in fans to their thighs claiming that the devices were bombs and would go off if they tried to escape.

Balan added a team from Tamil Nadu police has boarded a flight to reach Gurugram to take the suspects. A case has been registered against the suspects in Madurai for kidnapping. Balan added earlier too, Jirvani had used the same modus operandi to abduct businessmen from TN by calling them to Delhi and Kolkata.

“We suspect Jirvani’s real identity is different. Hussain has served nine years imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act in Delhi and was released from jail in June last year,” said Balan.

Vilvapathy said Jirvani had introduced himself as a man having a net value of ₹100 crore in the yarn export-import business.

“I had around 200 tonnes of processed yarn worth ₹5 crore in my stock. Yarn prices had come down significantly in the last two months. I had asked for ₹205/kg of yarn, which the suspect agreed readily,” said Vilvapathy.

The businessman said Jirvani told him that the Bangladeshi exporter would enter into an agreement for lifting 50 tonnes of yarn and 50% price would be paid immediately.

“The agreement was to be signed in two days after we reached. Jirvani told me we will be putting up at his guest house. However, as soon as they took us inside a small room, I got the inkling that this was foul play,” he said.

Vilvapathy said he has a yarn manufacturing factory in Madurai and his finished items are exported to at least 10 foreign countries in Europe and America.

.