Student abducted for debt

CHENNAI: A close relative’s failure to pay his debts saw his 12-year-old nephew being kidnapped by a gang at Anna Nagar on Wednesday. Hours later, the student was rescued from a bus near a check-post on ECR.R Lokeswaran, a Class VII student of Leo Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Anna Nagar West, had just stepped out of his house  in Korattur along with his cousin Jayasuriya to go to school, when two men grabbed the boy, bundled him into a waiting car and took off. Jayasuriya ran home to inform his family.ACP (L&O) P Thamarai Kannan told Express that two men came to the boy’s house on Sekkizhar Street in Jagadambal Colony around 6.30 am. Rajinikanth (36), the boy’s father, lived in the house with his mother, wife and son and his brother Niranjan Kumar’s (40) family. “The two men demanded to see Niranjan Kumar and his mother told them that he was not at home,” he said.Niranjan had alleged cheated several people to the tune of lakhs on the pretext of running a real estate business. Earlier, he had been arrested in a cheque bounce case in Tiruttani. The duo also claimed that her son had cheated them of their money. “Whom do we ask then for our money,” the duo wanted to know. Insisting that they would not leave the house till they got their money back, they sat on a bench outside. On seeing Niranjan’s son Jayasuriya leaving for school, they followed the boys till the end of the street, where they staged the kidnap.Suspecting that the student could have been kidnapped for his uncle’s failure to pay his debts, special police teams zeroed in on a particular transaction to the tune of `2.5 lakh.   “We found that we were on the right track,” Kannan said.The duo was traced and the boy was rescued from near Akkarai check-post on ECR. “The boy was found crying in a bus and other passengers informed the police,” another officer said. The police, however, refused to reveal the identity of the abductors and details of the boy’s release.