UP police scour Delhi to nab Najafgarh’s honeytrap doctor

LUCKNOW: A day after Delhi based doctor, Abhishek Singh, and four aides were arrested by UP Police for allegedly kidnapping Gonda medical student Gaurav Haldar for Rs 70 lakh ransom, the state cops are still camping in Delhi and NCR to nab the woman, also a doctor, who was used to honey-trap Gaurav. Also, police found that the captors purchased SIM cards on fake IDs, which they used to make the ransom calls to Gaurav’s father.
The lady doctor, Dr Preeti Mehra, and Dr Abhishek Singh were the masterminds of the kidnapping plot, police say. Both of them work at Rathi Hospital in Delhi’s Najafgarh area. Gonda police chief Shailesh Pandey said that a team along with Noida unit of STF are camping in the NCR to trace Dr Mehra. “Surveillance cells and members from the special operation group of Gonda police are tracking her,” said the officer.
Gaurav Haldar, a BAMS first year student, went missing from his Gonda college hostel on January 18. A day later, his father, himself a BAMS doctor in Bahraich, got a ransom call to pay up Rs 70 lakh. On Friday, UP STF and Gonda police safely recovered 21-yearold Haldar from Greater Noida.
Police claimed that mastermind Dr Abhishek Singh, along with his aides Nitesh, Mohit, Rohit, Satish and Dr Preeti Mehra were involved in the kidnapping and seeking Rs 70 lakh as ransom from the victim’s family. Dr Abhishek Singh, along with his aides Nitesh, Mohit were arrested after an encounter in Greater Noida from where Gaurav was also recovered while two others Rohit and Satish were arrested by Gonda police. Dr Mehra, however, is still on the run.
Gonda SP Pandey also disclosed that the arrested accused Nitesh, who ran a fake call centre, had supplied Dr Abhishek Singh with SIM cards on fake Ids while, Rohit purchased mobile phones, each worth Rs 660, for making a ransom call to victim’s father Nikhil Haldar. They destroyed the phone after making the calls. This was done deliberately to confuse investigators about their location and conceal the real identity of callers, police say.
The investigation has also revealed that on the day of crime, Rohit had got down in Lucknow while Nitesh, Abhishek, Preeti, and Mohit took Gaurav to Delhi.
Later, Rohit got Rs 4,000 from Dr Abhishek and took a bus to Sant Kabir Nagar and, along with his friend Satish, purchased a mobile phone for Rs 660 using fake Ids given by Nitesh and made a call to Gaurav’s father. STF sources told TOI that the plan to kidnap Gaurav was hatched around Diwali, November 2020.
Dr Abhishek, who had done his BAMS from Rajiv Gandhi University in Bengaluru in 2018, had visited his native place Bahraich during Diwali 2020. In Bahraich, Abhishek met his cousin Rohit (son of his father’s sister), who was close to victim’s father Nikhil Haldar. They planned to abduct Gaurav as they found that he was the only son of Nikhil, who was earning well.
“Dr Abhishek bounced the idea off his Delhi-based friend Mohit Singh, who works at a cloth store in Karolbagh. Before finalising the plan, they also roped in Mohit’s gym friend Nitesh, who is facing a fraud case in Gujarat,” said ASP, STF, Raj Kumar Mishra.