NOIDA: Five fraudsters allegedly kidnapped the brother of one of their former gang members as the latter had quit their fake firm through which they would dupe people on the pretext of offering bank loans. All the five have been arrested and their victim — a 20-year-old — was also rescued from an upscale condominium in Noida, police said on Tuesday.The five accused have been identified as Maju Chauhan, Ashok Chauhan, Parvez, Vishal Tiwari, and Salman. Police said they kidnapped at gunpoint Junaid, brother of Javed Ali, from his rented house in Mamura on the night of February 7 when his parents had gone to their native place in Maharajganj.“Javed was involved in the fraud earlier but he withdrew from the same following the recent raids on fake call centres in Gautam Budh Nagar. But he was being pressurised by the accused to rejoin them. And Junaid’s kidnapping was linked to Javed’s reluctance to go back to the crime world,” said Akhilesh Tripathi, the Phase III SHO.While Junaid was allegedly picked up on February 7, Javed informed the police on February 10 — which he has cited as the deadline given to him by the alleged abductors, for a ransom. “Around 12 in the night, the five accused had abducted Junaid. They later demanded Rs 30 lakh from me for his release,” he said.Cops claimed that while initially, the accused demanded Rs 30 lakh, Javed told them he did not have the amount and could only give Rs one or two lakh at a time.“So we told him to agree to give the accused Rs one lakh, promising he will pay the remaining amount at a later stage. We trapped three if the accused when they had arrived to take the money near the Cleo County condominium in Sector 121 on Sunday, and arrested Maju, Ashok and Parvez,” Tripathi said.“Later two others were nabbed from a flat inside the condominium, where Junaid was kept captive. We rescued Junaid unharmed,” he added.Nearly Rs 1 lakh in cash, loan sanction forms of a private bank, a car used in the crime, six mobile phones, some debit cards, a fake PAN card, and two country-made pistols were recovered from the flat, police said, adding the accused have been booked under Section 364a of IPC (kidnapping for ransom).

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