Fake kidnap backfires; youth murdered

bangalore: a 22-year youth, sam karthik of ejipura, who staged a kidnap on himself, found it too costly for him. he was murdered by people whose help he had sought to stage the drama. his killers have been caught. sam, an alcoholic, wanted to fool his father, a jayabalan. so, he orchestrated a kidnap drama with the help of his acquiantance s kumar whom he had met in a bar recently.sam accompanied kumar to his village near maddur on november 18. later, with help from kumar's elder brother raghu, they called jayabalan and demanded ransom. meanwhile, jayabalan lodged a missing complaint and efforts were made to trace the caller. when jayabalan failed to respond to their ransom calls, kumar and raghu asked sam to return home. sam allegedly refused to return and started blackmailing them by saying he would inform that kumar and raghu kidnapped him unless they get ransom money from his father. irked by this, raghu and kumar took sam to an isolated place in ramanagar taluk and strangled him to death. they burnt his body on november 20. however, police who were investigating the case nabbed kumar based on calls he had made to jayabalan's residence. based on his confession, he was arrested and sent to jail on wednesday. efforts are on to nab raghu. fake education racket: ccb sleuths have busted a fake education racket in the city. according to the police, the accused muralidhara alias p.m.raju, a native of kareem nagar in andhra pradesh floated siddartha education academy in palace guttahalli area and bangalore education academy in gandhinaar. he collected huge sums from students on promise of getting them seats in various universities. later, he closed shop and disappeared. on a complaint, the police arrested bhaskar rajashekhara and ramachandra, associates of muralidhara and recovered rs 43,000 from them along with fake rubber stamps and documents. they are looking for muralidhara.