Thaindian News

Noida, Sep 26 (IANS) A Noida court Monday awarded life imprisonment to three people for the 2006 kidnapping of Anant Gupta, the son of Adobe CEO Naresh Chand Gupta.

Special Judge N.K. Srivastava found Chhatrapal alias Dev alias Chuttan, Pawan and Jitendra guilty under sections 364A (kidnapping for ransom), 368 (wrongfully concealing or keeping in confinement a kidnapped or abducted person) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and imposed a fine of Rs.25,000 on each of them.

Four other accused - Ram Dayal, Santosh, Veer Singh and Sunil Kumar - were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

According to B.R. Sharma, counsel for the Guptas, the court examined 21 witnesses in all — 19 from the prosecution and two from the defence.

All the three convicts are currently in the Dasna Jail.

The Adobe CEO’s son was kidnapped Nov 13, 2006, when a maid, Seema, was taking him to the spot from where his school bus usually picked him up.

They were only 50 metres from the house, near a Mother Dairy kiosk, when two men, including main accused Chhatrapal, on a bike approached, snatched Anant and fled.

A first information report (FIR) was filed by Anant’s mother as his father was not in India.

Chhatrapal then called up the guard of the house, posing as a police official and asked him about the conditions prevailing outside the Gupta house.

It was later learnt that Chhatrapal’s father, at one time, was also operating the Mother Diary booth near their house. He was said to have obtained the details of the family from him through his brother Jitendra.

That same evening, Chhatrapal called up the family and demanded a ransom of Rs.50 lakh from Anant’s mother. On hearing the news, Anant’s father Naresh Gupta returned to India.

Chhatrapal had asked the family to send somebody to an isolated spot along the railway line in Mathura with the bag containing the cash. The packet was handed over to Chhatrapal and his men on the night of Nov 16, 2006, as per the instructions given by him.

However, the next day, as Chattrapal and his men were returning, they were surrounded by a heavy police force in the jungles of Salempur Jaap in the Kakor area, forcing him to leave the child and flee.

Chhatrapal was eventually arrested Nov 19, 2006, from near the Noida drain. He later escaped from police custody during one of the hearings in Noida Phase-II court Feb 4, 2008. He was rearrested April 3, 2008.