Sultanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Jan 29 (IANS): A youth has been arrested on a charge of staging his own "kidnapping" so as to get his girlfriend's father framed in a criminal case, police said on Friday.

Apart from the main accused Jitendra Kumar, 20, his friend Ravi was also arrested on Thursday for helping him in this matter.

Police arrested them after their investigations revealed that a ransom call was made by Ravi using Jitendra's phone.

Jitendra, who belongs to Amethi, lived with his maternal grandmother Durgawati in Nevadanupur village in Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh.

Jitendra had started singing in local musical events and left for Varanasi on January 23 on the pretext of learning music. The following morning, his father Surendra Kumar received a "ransom call" that his son had been "kidnapped" and Rs 10 lakh should be paid to secure his release.

Sultanpur Superintendent of Police Arvind Chaturvedi, who led the probe, said: "We found that the mobile phone of Jitendra had been used to make the call. We also noticed something amiss as a new SIM card was put around 2 am on January 24 but the ransom call came around 8 am."

Police found that the SIM card used to make the ransom call had been issued in Ravi's name.

A police team traced them to Shivgarh and arrested them. During questioning, Jitendra confessed that he had staged his own kidnapping in order to falsely implicate his girlfriend's father who was opposed to their relationship.