IANS

Bangalore, July 7: Three former software engineers and their three accomplices have been arrested by police on charges of kidnapping for ransom techies in this IT hub of India. Police identified the arrested men as Muniram, 32, Sandesh, 25, and Bharath Amla, 40, all engineering graduates, D.K. Kiran, 26, a graduate in tourism and hospitality, Praveen, 25, and Rajkumar, 28.

Police said all six had left their jobs and turned to crime to get rich quickly.

Two cars, weapons, Rs.400,00 and six cell-phones were seized from them, Bangalore Police Commissioner Neelam Achuta Rao told reporters Saturday.

He said the gang would kidnap software engineers and threaten to blow them up with explosives if they did not pay up. The explosive devices were, however, fake, Rao said.

He said the gang had told the police that two techies had paid the ransom but had not disclosed the exact amount. Efforts were on to trace the techies, he said.

The gang was caught following a complaint from a third techie, an employee of MindTree Consulting, who was kidnapped May 27 while on way to office. The consultant, identified as Srinivas, paid Rs.115,000 in cash and a cheque for Rs.30,000, Rao said.

Srinivas approached the police as the gang was threatening to eliminate him if he did not pay Rs.8 million, Rao added.