PATNA: The Patna high court on Friday gave eight weeks’ time to city SSP Manu Mahraaj to arrested Awadesh Prasad alias Pappu, the prime accused in the kidnapping of a Ghaziabad youth, who is yet to be traced by the Patna police even after two and half years of his kidnapping.The division bench of justice Ravi Ranjan and justice S Kumar also ordered SSP to trace the youth.Kaushal Kishore Singh (22), of Pratap Vihar in Ghaziabad, allegedly went missing from Patrakar Nagar police station area in October 2015. He was scheduled to return to Ghaziabad before which his cellphone got switched off. Later, his family members received a ransom call from his cellphone on November 2, 2015.An FIR was lodged with Patrakar Nagar police station on November 6, 2015 on basis of written complaint of Kaushal’s father Omprakash Singh submitted to SSP Maharaaj as police station had denied accepting his complaint. Around Rs 25 lakh ransom was demanded by the kidnappers.The police arrested Manoj Kumar from Kolkata, who gave confessional statement that he lured Kaushal to Kolkata on name of providing job and transported him to Nawada with the help of Awadesh Mukhiya, Devendra Kumar, Manoj Chaudhary and Awadesh alias Pappu in unconscious condition.He also confessed it was Awadesh alias Pappu who had kept Kaushal captive at Nawada. Except Awadesh, all the accused were arrested. Manoj and Awadesh Mukhiya were still behind bars. All accused were native of Nawada.Maharaaj along with former Patna sadar ASP Sushant Kumar Saroj were physically present before court during hearing.The court verbally remarked if police left investigation idle after filing chargesheet against four arrested persons. It also expressed its surprise over the direct availability of case diary to Omprakash’s counsel Neeraj Kumar.Court also asked SSP if police had any inkling if victim was alive or not. It also remarked that if police doesn’t takes quick action in kidnapping cases, it provides a breathing space to kidnappers.While SSP appraised that even property of Awadesh was attached, court said attachment was would not work. It quizzed SSP if police kept an eye on two out of the four accused, who were granted bail.Counsel Kumar after hearing, told TOI that victim’s family had deposited Rs 10,000 on three occasion into Kaushal’s bank account and Manoj had confessed that he and others withdrew it from Patna, Ranchi and Silao in Nalanda.“A letter in victim’s handwriting was received by family at Ghaziabad on November 6, 2015 in which he had requested to pay ransom and save him else he would be chopped off,” he said and added instead of giving information to press about arresting, police should had focused on Kaushal’s recovery.

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