The Commissionerate Police busted an abduction racket on Monday and arrested five persons including two engineering students.

The accused had kidnapped one Gourav Rath, a BTech student, while he was returning from tuitions at Damana Square on 26 February.

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The arrested persons have been identified as Gopal Krushna Mohapatra alias Gopi, a BTech pass out, Subhraj Behera alias Teetee, Abhijit Mishra alias Chintu, Soumya Ranjan Mohapatra and Siddharth Mohapatra.

Police Commissioner YB Khurania, while briefing about the major breakthrough of the special squad of the city police, said that the five accused hailing from Puri had hatched a conspiracy to abduct two youths for money.

When their attempts failed, they kidnapped Gourav last month. The kidnappers had trapped the 17-year-old boy by befriending him on Facebook.

They developed friendship with the victim through a girl on a fake Facebook ID. Later, the kidnappers followed his telephonic calls, traced him and executed the abduction plan after fetching his number and other details.

The abductors had lodged Rath in Puri for a couple of days. However, they shifted their hideout to Bomikhal area in Bhubaneswar after the victim’s mobile got switched on accidentally.

They had called up Gourav’s father Prasant Kumar Rath demanding a ransom of Rs 11 lakh. However, the kidnappers left the victim near Raghunathpur on the outskirts of the capital city on February 28 night after his father Prasant paid Rs 2 lakh initially.

After a case was registered by the kin of the BTech student on the following day of his kidnap, Chandrasekharpur police formed a special team to crack the case. It successfully zeroed in on a house under Bomikhal area yesterday.

From there, three youths were rounded up for interrogation. Moments later, a blast occurred at that house causing damage to property. It is suspected that they had caused the explosion in a bid to destroy all the evidences of the kidnapping plot.

After rounds of interrogation, the arrested persons gave information of the mastermind of the crime – Gopal Krushna Mohapatra and another person, who were also subsequently arrested by the police.The cops are on the lookout for the girl who used to make calls to the victim.