Criminals use social media to kidnap youth

Patna: In a one-of-its-kind kidnapping using social networking, professional criminals from Bihar posing as a beautiful girl sent a friend request to a youth on Facebook, trapped him with love claims and kidnapped him, seeking a ransom of Rs 1 million. Thanks to the prompt action by the police, the victim was saved.

The incident took place at Sihma village under Matihani police station in Begusarai district of Bihar earlier this week. Police said the criminals pretending to be Priyanka Kumari sent a friend request to Anubhav Kumar, a graduate student active on the social networking site, and soon began chatting frequently.

The fake Facebook friend soon took the youth in her grip, pretending to have fallen in love with him and wanted to live together. When talks reached the stage of marriage, the ‘friend’ expressed her wish to meet him and even offered to send a car to bring him. The youth happily agreed to oblige “her”.

The youth rode the car when it reached his village in Begusarai earlier this week but was kidnapped by the criminals who were hiding outside the village. It was only after the parents received a ransom call of Rs 1 million that they came to know that their son had been kidnapped.

Subsequently, they reported the matter to the police. Acting promptly on the complaint, the police formed a special team and began conducting extensive raids in the areas based on certain leads as provided by the family, forcing the criminals to release the victim soon. However the kidnappers are yet to be nabbed although raids are still on to arrest them.

“This is perhaps the first incident of the criminals using the social networking site to hatch a kidnap conspiracy,” the local Begusarai district superintendent of police Manoj Kumar told the police on Thursday.

He said the criminals also trapped another youth from the village applying the same trick but he appeared more smart and declined their request to meet them.