Man arrested for threatening to kidnap businessman’s son

NEW DELHI - Having mortgaged his father’s car and lost the money gambling, a man threatened to kidnap the son of a south Delhi businessman unless he was paid a large sum of money but has been arrested, police said Thursday.

A robber and extortionist, Uttam Jeet Singh was arrested from Central Secretatriat metro station in central Delhi Wednesday on a tip-off, a police official said.

Bittoo Sondhi, the victim who owns a bike showroom dealing in Suzuki superbikes worth lakhs of rupees in Lajpat Nagar area, filed a police complaint that he had got a call demanding Rs. five lakh to prevent his son’s kidnapping, the official added.

Singh desperately needed money as he had mortgaged his father’s car to friend for Rs. 1.25 lakh and had lost all the money gambling. His furious father who had disowned him had threatened to file a case against him because of the incident, said a police official.

“Singh knew Sondhi as his father dealt in the purchase of second hand bikes and cars and Sondhi was one of his regular customers. So, he changed his tone and conversed as a Haryanvi wrestler every time a call was made,” the official said.

“After making a few calls, Singh stopped using mobile phones and kept calling from telephone booths spread across the city which made our job tougher. He slept in shelter homes to avoid any kind of suspicion or apprehension,” the official added.

“He was a pampered child born in a rich family and had fell in bad company from school days as he had started consuming alcohol and would gamble regularly,” the official said.

In 2003, Singh had also tried to set up a hotel, Lucky Palace in Thailand but had failed and came back to the country the same year. He was a regular at casinos in Nepal and Goa, accompanied by his girlfriends.

“Singh is allegedly involved in another six cases of robbery and snatching out of which he has been declared proclaimed offender in four of them,” the official added.