Kidnappers stuck in jam, cops rescue Mum ‘hacker’

Chandigarh: Mumbai-based “ethical hacker” Manish Bangale was “rescued” from his kidnappers by UT police on Wednesday, almost six months after “he was first called to Punjab in the disguise of a particular job (data scraping) by his kidnappers”. UT police said according to Bangale, he had been kept in confinement in different parts of Punjab for the past six months, with his kidnappers wanting him to hack into bank accounts of rich people and help them get large sums of money fraudulently.
According to Bangale, he didn’t carry out any illegal financial deal during this period.UT police said Bangale was a co-accused in a case of sending a hoax bomb email to the authorities at Sri Guru Ramdas Ji International Airport on Aug 14. Amritsar police had arrested two persons Vikramjit Singh and Gurdev Singh in the case. Earlier, Bangale was under Vikramjit and Gurdev’s custody and later he was handed over to the accused Ravi and Ranjit Singh. In their threat email to airport authorities, the accused had allegedly demanded Rs 1 crore and threatened to detonate six bombs planted at the airport if the money was not paid.
Meanwhile, UT police arrested two persons — Ranjit Singh (50) of Gurdaspur and Ravi Sharma (35) of Hoshiarpur — for allegedly kidnapping Bangale, UT SSP Kanwardeep Kaur said.
It all happened when a team of Sector 36 police, patrolling near Fragrance Garden in Sector 36, noticed a car with a registration number of Delhi. While there were three occupants in the car, one of them seat on the rear seat was knocking on the glass repeatedly, seeking help. As cops approached the vehicle, its driver attempted to escape. The police started following the car which got stuck in a traffic jam near ISBT-Sector 43.
As police apprehended them, help seeker identified himself as Manish Bangale, a resident of Jalgaon district in Maharashtra. Manish revealed that he had been called by Ranjit, Ravi and their friends for data scraping on April 26, and he had travelled to Amritsar to meet them. However, they kidnapped him and pressurised him to transfer large sums of money from various bank accounts into their accounts. When he refused to comply, the kidnappers allegedly tortured him and threatened to kill him.
Bangale further alleged that the complainant was brought to a Nayagaon Hotel and was taken to different locations in Chandigarh to facilitate the transfer of money from accounts provided by them. Based on the information provided by Manish Bangale, Sector 36 police registered a case against Ravi and Ranjit under the relevant sections of BNS. Police said accused Ranjit Singh had earlier been booked in nine cases of cheating and forgery in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.