Maharashtra: Man fakes kidnapping to settle debts, held

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], June 2 : In an incident that came to light in Mumbai's Bangur Nagar police station limits on Thursday, a man allegedly faked his kidnapping to settle his debts, police said.
Senior inspector of Bangur Nagar police station, Pramod Tawde, said the accused, identified as Jitendra Joshi (27) staged his kidnapping and demanded a ransom of five lakh rupees from his own father.
SI Tawde added that the police had investigated the matter on the complaint of the accused's family members.
"A family member of the accused filed a complaint at around 2 am that someone had kidnapped Jitendra Joshi in the Goregaon area and had demanded a ransom of Rs 5 lakh," the officer said.
Police came across a video in which Jitendra Joshi was seen tied up with a rope to a tempo parked within the limits of Bangur Nagar police station, said officials.
Further investigation into the matter revealed that the video of the fake kidnapping was filmed by Jitendra himself, with the help of a friend, in a bid to extort money from his family members and settle his loans.
The sleuths learned further that Jitendra worked as a manager at Dmart Mall where he ran up debts worth lakhs. This ultimately prompted him to stage the kidnapping, police said.
The police informed that a case was registered against Jitendra and he was arrested.
"We arrested Jitendra and produced him in court today," the officer said, adding that the court remanded him in police custody till June 3.