Gonda medical student rescued from kidnappers, was honeytrapped by Delhi-based woman doctor; 3 arrested

Noida: In a major breakthrough, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) in a joint operation with Gonda police rescued a medical student kidnapped from Gonda district on January 18. Police have arrested three of the four kidnappers, who had demanded Rs 70 lakh ransom from the victim's family.

Two of the four accused are doctors one of whom is a woman. The Delhi-based woman doctor is still at large. The four accused have been identified as Dr Abhishek Singh, Dr Preeti Mehra, Nitesh and Mohit Singh. Except for Mehra, all three accused are in the police net.

The victim Gaurav Halder, a student of BAMS at SCPM College, was abducted from Gonda after he was honeytrapped by Dr. Abhishek Singh's female friend and doctor Preeti Mehra.

Gaurav is a resident of Bahraich district in UP.

The accused gave anesthesia to Gaurav and then brought him to the national capital and demanded Rs 70 lakh from the family.

The three accused arrested by Noida STF

In a joint press conference by West UP STF Superintendent of Police (SP) Kuldeep Narayan and Gonda SP Shailendra Pandey, Gaurav Haldar was kept in NCR after being kidnapped.

Acting on a tip-off, Noida STF SP Rajkumar Mishra arrested the three accused from Noida Expressway on Friday. Police have also recovered a car, countrymade pistol, drug injection used for kidnapping the victim.

During the probe, police came to know that the mastermind of the kidnapping was Dr Abhishek, a resident of Gonda district in UP.

Abhishek, who worked at Rathi Hospital in Delhi's Najafgarh, was known to the victim. Abhishek colluded with his friend Dr Preeti Mehra to plan the kidnapping. He asked Dr Mehra to honeytrap Gaurav and asked him to come to Gonda to meet her.

Later, the accused injected Gaurav with the drug and brought him to Delhi. He was kept hostage at DDA flat in Delhi's Bakkarwala area.

Meanwhile, Gonda Police have also arrested two men identified as Rohit and Satish for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping.

The duo told police that Nitesh used to run a fake call centre in Delhi to cheat people. They also said that the planning to kidnap Gaurav was being carried out since Diwali last year.