Nayagarh: Police arrested three youths on Tuesday in connection with the sensational kidnapping of 12-year-old boy Amrit Patra of Kurala village under Odagaon police limits in Nayagarh district.
The accused persons have been identified as Swapna Panda, Bhakta Darshan Panda, and Sunil Panigrahi of Kurala village.
“During the course of our investigation, we found that three youths of the same village were involved in the kidnapping of 12-year-old Amrit Patra. We have arrested them yesterday,” informed Nayagarh SP Alekh Chandra Pahi speaking to reporters.
Sharing details of the case, the SP said that prime accused in the case Swapna Panda had purchased a pick-up van by taking a loan of around ₹ 9 lakh from a finance company and had also taken around ₹ 2,60,000 loan from three micro-finance companies and was debt-ridden.
As his loan burden burgeoned he was unable to pay his EMIs, the SP added.
Swapna Panda planned to kidnap Amrit to extort ransom money of around ₹ 10 lakh from Amrit’s father to repay his debts, Pahi said.
Swapna then took the help of his elder brother Bhakta Darshan Panda and Sunil Panigrahi to kidnap Amrit, he added.
It may be noted that Amrit Patra had gone to tuition on Thursday and didn’t return home.
After a frantic search, his parents lodged a missing complaint the following day.
While police were searching for him, Amrit was astonishingly rescued from a house 500 mtrs from his residence in Kurala village under Odagaon police limits on Monday morning.
