Rajarhat - Criminal's Den

‘Kidnap’ and ransom call
- IT firm executive missing after early office exit
OUR BUREAU

Calcutta, Feb. 27: An IT firm manager was allegedly kidnapped while returning home from his office at New Town last evening.

The family of Kasba resident Sandipan Das, 34, lodged an FIR with New Town police station this morning alleging that the kidnappers had demanded ransom.

Police sources said the initial demand was for Rs 20 lakh.

“A special team of North 24-Parganas police has been set up to trace Das. The last tower location of his mobile phone showed he was somewhere around Belghoria on the northern fringes of the city,” a senior police officer said.

According to the police, Das, an employee of Capge- mini Consulting, where he has been working since January 2007, had reached office as usual yesterday afternoon. Normally, he works from 1pm to 10pm. “However, yesterday he complained of headache and left office at 8pm,” a North 24-Parganas officer said.

Police sources said Das had first tried to get an office car to reach home but when he was unable to do so, he started walking towards Salt Lake for a taxi.

“But a friend who was travelling in a taxi spotted Das walking and asked him to get in,” the officer said. The friend got down near Salt Lake’s DL block and Das took the same taxi home.

“At 9.40pm, a person called from Sandipan’s mobile and told his father, Samiran, that he had been kidnapped and would be released only in exchange for Rs 20 lakh,” a family source said. “The caller spoke in Hindi and said Sandipan was safe in their custody.”

When Samiran asked for proof that his son had been kidnapped, the caller handed the phone to Sandipan, the police said.

The family again received a call from the kidnappers around 12:30pm today.

“The family told the callers they could not pay more than Rs 10 lakh but the kidnappers were not agreeing to reduce the amount,” the source said.

According to the sources, the family’s lawyer was speaking to the kidnappers till late this evening.

Sandipan’s father is a retired official of a multinational bank. Sandipan is married with a one-and-a-half-year-old boy. A student of Jadavpur Vidyapith and Jagabandhu Institution, he did his BCom from Calcutta University and studied at Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune.

According to his profile on LinkedIn, a professional networking site, he previously worked as a team leader at Infosys BPO and ACS, an accounts assistant at Accenture Services and a senior executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“He is very nice person and an introvert by nature. He is liked by everyone in the neighbourhood,” said Samir Chakraborty, a neighbour.

Throughout the day, nei-ghbours were visiting the Das residence at KP Roy Lane to console his parents and wife. “We are all so worried about him,” Chakraborty said.

Cab robbery:Tech town's new trend
TNN, Feb 28, 2010, 07.06am IST

SALT LAKE: The abduction of techie Sandipan Das is shocking, but it may just be the tip of the iceberg. Similar incidents have happened in the area in the recent past and the modus operandi suggests that some of the taxi drivers may well be actively helping the gangs.

Salt Lake police have received quite a number of complaints though none were abductions from passengers of being robbed in a manner eerily similar to that of Das's abduction. All of these passengers were robbed on their way back home in taxis that stopped midway, complaining of technical disorder. In all of the cases, the gang was found waiting nearby.

On Friday evening, Sandipan had taken a taxi from the DLF Building. The driver complained of a technical problem and stopped the taxi at a desolate stretch on the Salt Lake Bypass, near a CRPF camp. The abductors were waiting at this point. As soon as the taxi came to a halt, some of them forced into the taxi and took Das away through a different route.

Similar incidents have been reported from places surrounding Rajarhat and Salt Lake Sector V, though police chose to overlook them. Even young couples taking taxis from Nicco Park have reported of harassment by taxi drivers when they protested against doctored taxi metres.

TOI reported an incident earlier this month when a software professional was tormented by two snake charmers near the Millennium Towers while he was sitting in a taxi. They dropped a snake on his lap through the open window of the taxi and demanded money. The techie was let off only after he shelled out Rs 600. He later lodged a formal complaint with the Salt Lake police at Sector V Investigation Centre. The police, after initiating the probe, concluded that the snake charmers had done the job in collusion with the taxi driver. But the taxi driver is yet to be rounded up.

Again in February, a young woman working with a company at the Technopolis Building was robbed at a desolate place while she was going to the airport via the Rajarhat arterial road. Some Miscreants stopped her taxi at a desolate place and snatched her belongings, including all her credit cards. However, the goons forgot to take away her cellphone, with which she called up the police. In January, a young BPO worker was robbed of his purse at the dead of the night between Salt Lake bypass and Nicco Park.

"We have tried to get in touch with taxi unions. But the union office bearers shirked their responsibility by saying that the taxis in question were flying taxis' and that their drivers were not their members," said a senior police officer.

As per reports the stretch in sector V, just after the IT hub has become a virtual criminals den.
Taxi operators are conniving with local criminals to halt their vehicles at desolated places on the excuse that there is something wrong with the vehicle. Then some 5 or six criminals come out of nowhere and threaten and beat up the lone occupant and loot his belongings and as in the above case, even kidnap him.
The taxi association is very vocal when it wants its fares raised but when these problems crop up, they wash their hands saying that the taxi did not belong to their association.
Let Kolkata take a lead in how to deal with taxis.
All taxis registered in Kolkata should be on a computerised data base.
Taxi owners should give the driver licence and photograph of each and every person who would drive his vehicle. The onus should be on the owner of the taxi to inform the police with new data , if the driver is changed.
Police posts with computers should be placed at strategic places so that all taxis passing by those places should be recorded, checked.
All taxis passing through sector V, since it is criminal prone, should be even more thouroughly checked.
If the driver in the computer record of the vehicle varies from the driver driving the vehicle,it should be impounded till further enquiry.
Nowadays digital cameras come very cheap. Each such post should be equipped with a digital camera in which the drivers photograph should be taken and uploaded on the computer immediately. In case anything happens to the persons in the taxi, the driver should be nabbed immediately.
Each taxis should compulsorily be equipped with a battery operated siren placed in the back seat.
In case the occupants fear an attack, they should blow the siren.
Unless, immediate action is taken on the above line, we will have many more kidnapping and lootings on the way to the airport.