The Pydhonie police on Friday registered a non-cognisable offence against Aurangabad resident Mohamed Yusuf Chou-dhary (35), who had faked his own kidnapping to pay a debt of `4 lakh.
Choudhary claimed that he was kidnapped by three men, who were planning to remove his kidney and sell it. According to the police, Choudhary, a scrap dealer, staged the kidnap in the hope of receiving money from his relatives.
Choudhary had come to the city to meet a relative, after which he checked into a hotel in South Mumbai. A few days ago, Choudhary hired a taxi from outside the hotel, and called his nephew Sameer Shaikh, a real estate agent, and informed him that he was kidnapped.
Mr Shaikh then approached the Pydhonie police, and the police traced the location of the phone to Pune. While inquiring with the hotel where Choudhary had checked in, the police learnt that all his clothes were also missing. This made the police suspicious, and officials checked the hotel’s CCTV footage and found out that Choudhary had hired a cab and was not kidnapped.
“We then went to Pune and arrested him. He said that he had taken a loan of around `3.4 lakh from a few people and had suffered losses in his business, and hence, hatched the plan,” said Krishna Prakash, additional commissioner of police.