Newskarnataka-Mangalore
Mangalore :In a major breakthrough, the Mangalore police have arrested eight members of a gang on the charges of kidnapping and blackmailing two medical students at Derlakatte on December 18. The arrests were made on December 21, Saturday and the media was briefed about the same by Mangalore City Police Commissioner R Hithendra.
The arrested eight accused have been already produced before the court and remanded to judicial custody for three days.
The Commissioner informed that the eight were arrested from a house at Katipalla on the basis of the information furnished by the victim students.
The incident had taken place on the night of December 18 at around 11 pm when the two students, the boy hailing from Kerala origin and the girl student from Bihar were chatting inside their car outside the Meeting Point bar and restaurant at Derlakatte. The Commissioner said the assailants took the two in a car to a house in an isolated spot where they were forced to engage in sex at gun point when the kidnappers took photographs and videographed the event.
It is learnt they then demanded Rs 25 lakhs from the two lest they would release the footages on the internet, social networking sites and also send the same to their parents.
The Commissioner said when the students agreed to pay Rs 3 lakhs, they released the girl on December 20 and dropped her at Thokkottu with a warning that she should not disclose anything. However, the girl mustered courage and lodged a complaint with the Konaje police through an advocate.
The Police who wasted no time spread a dragnet for the accused and arrested them at Katipalla. The police also seized a car, mobile phones, the video clip and weapons from the accused.
Konaje police booked the accused under sections 363, 384, 395, 354, 354 (c), 506, 364 (a), and 307 of IPC.
The names of the accused have been identified as Shamsuddin (23) of Suratkal, Shameer (21) Iqbal (23), Rauf (22) of Deralakatte, Nawaz (28) of Mudipu, Nisar (18) of Manjanady, Harshad (28) and Sharfan Hussain (21) of Deralakatte.
Dr K V Jagadish, DCP (law and order) who is investigating the case and Dharmaiah, DCP (crime) were present.
