Noida, Sep 25 (IANS): A Noida court Saturday convicted three people for kidnapping Anant Gupta, the son of Adobe CEO Naresh Chand Gupta, in 2006 while acquitting four others. Sentences will be announced Monday.
Special Judge N.K. Srivastava held Chhatrapal alias Dev alias Chuttan, Pawan and Jitendra guilty under sections 364A (kidnapping for ransom), 368(wrongfully concealing or keeping in confinement a kidnapped or abducted person), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
Four other accused - Ram Dayal, Santosh, Veer Singh and Sunil Kumar - were let off for lack of evidence against them.
All the three convicts are currently in the Dasna Jail.
The Adobe CEO's son was kidnapped Nov 13, 2006, when a maid, Seema, was taking him to the spot where his school bus usually picked him up.
They were only 50 metres from the house, near a Mother Dairy kiosk, when two men, including main accused Chhatrapal, on a bike approached, snatched Anant and fled.
An FIR was filed by Anant's mother as his father was away from India.
Chhatrapal then called up the guard of the house, posing as a police official and asked him about the conditions prevailing outside the Gupta house.
It was later learnt Chhatrapal's father, at one time, was also operating the Mother Diary booth near their house. He was said to have obtained the details of the family from him through his brother Jitendra.
That same evening, Chhatrapal called up on the family and demanded a ransom of Rs.50 lakh from Anant's mother. On hearing the news, Anant's father Naresh Gupta returned to India.
Chhatrapal had asked the family to send somebody to an isolated spot along the railway line in Mathura with the bag containing the cash. The packet was handed over to Chhatrapal and his men on the night of Nov 16, 2006, as per the instructions given by him.
However, the next day, as Chattrapal and his men were returning, they were surrounded by a heavy police force in the jungles of Salempur Jaap in the Kakor area, forcing him to leave the child and flee.
Chhatrapal was eventually arrested Nov 19, 2006, from near the Noida drain. He later escaped from the police custody during one of the hearings in Noida Phase-II court on Feb 4, 2008. He was rearrested on April 3, 2008.