Woman stages own kidnapping to pay debts

Mohali, January 23
Under debt, Santra Devi Sharma (60) of Phase VI staged her own kidnapping to extract money from her husband. Owing to her habit of gambling, the woman was running a debt of around Rs 4 lakh.

On the evening of January 21, she connived with two boys, Pawan and Satu, alias Vishal, to stage her kidnapping. She made one of the boys call up her husband, Ram Niwas Sharma, and ask for ransom of Rs 15 lakh to secure her release.

Before the caller could call up again, Ram Niwas approached the police and reported the matter to it.

The caller also threatened to eliminate the women if the money was not paid to him. The woman’s husband is a retired Superintendent from Haryana finance department. A police team, led by SP, City, Harpreet Singh started monitoring the calls and found that the woman had been kept somewhere at Chintpurni. After conducting raids, the police found that she was herself hiding there and was making the two boys make the ransom calls to her husband.

The woman’s husband had sold his house in Sector 40 for Rs 4 crore but bought another house in Phase 6 for Rs 2.5 crore and given the remaning money to his son who runs a lottery shop in Phase 6.

The SP City said the woman had been arrested for hatching the conspiracy for extortion. The two boys who helped her are still at large.

She was in habit of gambling

Sources in police said the woman used to go to a shop to gamble and had lost a substancial money. She is reported to have stolen money from her house.