Public beats up gang of kidnappers in Oragadam

CHENNAI: A few villagers on Tuesday manged to overpower and thrashed four men who were suspected to have kidnapped youngsters and demanded money from their families in Oragadam, Kancheepuram.

The four men were later handed over to the police.

According to the police, two days ago, Shyam (17) of Mettupalayam near Oragadam was walking to a shop in the locality when two men who came on a bike pretended to ask direction for an address, threatened him with a knife and kidnapped him.

As Shyam failed to return home for a long time, his relative Prem (22) went in search of him. The gang allegedly kidnapped Prem as well.

Police said the gang took both to a forest area. From there, they contacted their uncle Prem Nasir and demanded Rs 50,000 from them and asked to transfer the money through UPI. They also threatened to kill both of them if they file a complaint with police. Soon, Prem Nasir transferred Rs 5000 and said he has no more money and asked to release the boys.

Since the kidnappers were not ready to release them he again transferred Rs 4000.

Even after that as they were not ready to release them, the family filed a complaint with the Oragadam police station.

The police who traced the mobile signals of the two in a forest area in Vadakkupattu.

With the help of the police, villagers who went to the forest, traced four men with the two kidnapped youngsters and they were rescued.

The villagers who surrounded the kidnappers, tied them to the trees and thrashed them.

The police rescued them from the villagers and they were admitted to the Chengalpattu GH. The police identified the kidnappers as Natraj (31) of Perungalathur, Ayyappan (19) and Manikandan (19) of Padappai and Vigneshwaran (19) of Kannagi Nagar in Chennai.

Police said the group used to kidnap the people and extort money from their families.