Koraput: The Koraput police arrested 13 persons, including three women, for their involvement in the abduction of a rice mill owner last week.
Police said the victim’s family had already paid Rs 25 lakh as first instalment of the ransom without informing the police. “We have recovered Rs 24.85 lakh of the ransom money, three cars, a motorcycle, two iron swords, two pistols, a mobile phone belonging to the victim and at least 13 mobile phones from the arrested persons’ possession,” SP (Koraput) Abhinav Sonkar said on Thursday.
According to the police, the kidnappers initially demanded a ransom of Rs 90 lakh, which was later reduced to Rs 70 lakh.
A Ramesh Patra was abducted on July 12 while driving home from his mill on the Perahandi-Jayantagiri Canal road under Borigumma police station limits. He was rescued by police on July 14. “Our priority was to rescue the victim. He was freed from the clutches of the kidnappers from R Maliguda under Semiliguda police station limits,” the SP added.
According to sources, eight of the 13 arrested are history-sheeters who meticulously planned the crime.
The kingpin, identified as Abhijeet Mahuria (26), has at least 12 criminal cases lodged against him at Jeypore town and Sadar police stations.
Another accused, Raghunath Harijan (32), was an employee of the victim and had provided information about Patra’s whereabouts to the gang.

We also published the following articles recently