Kota: The city police while solving a two d-y old case of ransom from three antique item businessmen from Mumbai late on Monday busted an 11 member gang and arrested five of them from Ujjain while recovering cash of about 5.40 lakhs from their possession. The efforts are underway to nab the other six members of the gang.“An antique item businessman, identified as Yogendra Hansraj Prajapati, a resident of Mumbai lodged a report in Jawahar Nagar police station that he along with his two other partners identified as Mohammad Raees of Mumbai and Suryakant Hathimare of Nagpur were held hostage by Kuldeep alias Sunny, Kiran Bundela and around 10 others in a farmhouse on Girdharpura mega highway in Kota on last Friday and an amount of Rs. 22 lakhs were extorted from them,” said Kota city SP Anshuman Bhomia. The captors also robbed the three businessmen of their gold rings, chains, ATM cards and cash of around 1.50 lakhs.The antique item businessmen and two of the accused, Kuldeep alias Sunny, Kiran Bundela had been acquainted to one another for last one and a half year and a week earlier, they held a meeting in hotel in New Delhi where Kuldeep and Kiran invited the antique item businessman to Kota for a deal of huge quantity of antique item. Accordingly, Yogendra Hansraj Prajapati along with his two partners on July 12 reached Kota where the two accused offered them stay at hotel. “Sunny on the same day around 11 o’clock took the three antique businessmen by his car to a farmhouse on national highway where around 10 to 11 persons were already present,” the SP said. The accused in the farmhouse held the three businessmen hostage and they were severely thrashed there. The accused demanded a ransom of around one corer but later the ransom amount was settled at Rs. 25 Lakhs. The accused forced the three businessmen to bring the amount from their homes to Kota through Hawala and succeeded to get cash of Rs. 22 lakkhs.The accused later on Saturday evening released the three businessmen on a national highway in Kota from where they reached Jawahar Nagar police station at night and lodged a case in this connection.During the investigation and study of CCTV footage in hotel in Kota, it was revealed that the two accused were from Madhya Pradesh and others were from Haryana and Punjab.“The five members of the gang identified as gang kingpin Geetraj alias Kuldeep Rajput alias Sunny (29), resident of Panipat in Haryana, Saikiran alias Kiran Bundela (38) of Haryana, Neeraj Arya (23) of Madhya Pradesh Sachin Guglani (30) of Haryana and Depak Arya (30) of Sheopur in MP were late on Monday night arrested from a car in Ujjain city,” the SP said. An MP police uniform was also recovered from their possession besides cash of Rs. 5.40 lakhs, fake stamps of income tax and sales tax department.The other six members of the gang identified as Golu Phatak, Akshya Sharma, Prerit Mudgal, Surendra Sharma of Gwalior and Aman Khan of Sheopur, Vinay alias Kamal Jain of Rohatak are yet to be nabbed.

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