Bengaluru: The police have rescued an 11-year-old boy, who had been kidnapped on Thursday evening, was rescued within 15 hours.

According to the police, the prime accused knew the boy and allegedly kidnapped him to extort Rs. 1 crore from the father, a cloth merchant.

The police have identified the prime accused as Manjunath B., a native of Kunigal. He owned a juice centre in Malleswaram, which was near a playground where the boy would often visit to play football.

“Manjunath had tried to set up a call centre and incurred a loss of Rs. 40 lakh. He wanted to use the ransom to clear his debt,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (North division) Chetan Singh Rathore.

On Thursday evening, when the boy came to play, Manjunath pulled him into a car and took him to a farmhouse in Kunigal. Manjunath then left three of his associates to guard the boy and returned to the city to make the ransom call.

By then, his parents had approached the police with a missing complaint. The police zeroed in on Manjunath before he could make the ransom call. Once he was arrested, he confessed to the crime and revealed the location of the farmhouse.