Two arrested in E Champaran, three in Nepal in Kedia kidnapping case

Satish Sharma
Motihari : Bihar police have arrested Ranjan Ojha of village Laxminia under Raxaul police station  and Mohammad of Siswakhar village under Kalyanpur village in East Champaran in connection with kidnapping of Nepal businessman Suresh Kedia. Both the criminals would be handed over to Nepal police. Ranjan Ojha is a close associate of notorious criminal Bablu Dubey, who is involved in 36 criminal cases and lodged in Buxar jail. Three other criminals were arrested in Bara district in Nepal. One of the criminal arrested in Nepal is relative of Bablu Dubey.

After recovery of  Suresh Kedia, a business magnate of Birgunj of Nepal from   a village under Kotawa police station in East Champaran,  by a joint police team of East and West Champaran police on Monday,
Chatauni  police of  Motihari town  had lodged a case on the statement of Vijay Kumar Yadav, SHO,  Chhatauni police station against  Ranjan Ojha, who was arrested by police and remanded to jail custody.       Vijay Kumar Yadav ,SHO, alleged in FIR, that  after getting  information of kidnapping of Kedia  in
Bara district of Nepal  he tightened  the security on NH28A in Chhatauni area inMotihari  town and started  searching of all vehicles.

In the meantime, he got an information  that a  Scorpio, whose rear windscreen was broken,   has reached a motor workshop  and there were stain of blood in thevehicle. He rushed to the workshop and  caught one person from the SUV. He was identified as Ranjan Ojha of Raxaul. He seized the SUV and  quizzed Ranjan Ojha, who disclosed that he was an associate of  dreaded Bablu Dubey  and he had hatched  the plan to kidnap  Kedia. On the basis of information gathered from him, police rescued Kedia from Kotawa area. The police recovered one pistol, live cartridges, cellphones and bottles of wine from the SUV. The owner of  SUV,  which was used for kidnapping  Kedia, is Dhrendra Sah of Raxaul and he is being quizzed by Raxaul police.

DIG, Hethaura range, Napal, Pashupati Upadhyay, who is monitoring  this sensational kidnapping case, talking to mediapersons  said that a group of Bihar and Nepal criminals executed the plan of kidnapping   of Kedia in Bara district and on the basis of cellphone surveillance police have arrested three criminals:  Chanchal Pandey, Jiyalal Yadav and Pushkar Singh,  from Bara district. Chanchal Pandey is relative of Bablu Dubey, a criminal of Bihar who was mastermind of the entire  plan.

The  members of  Chamber of Commerce of Birgunj, Nepal, at an emergent meeting at Birgunj  on Tuesday, in a unanimous  resolution thanked the Bihar police and specially  SsP of West and East Champaran district  for fast and safe recovery of Kedia without payment of any ransom amount. The meeting condemned the rumour
that a ransom was paid to kidnappers through Hawala for the release of Kedia. The meeting was presided by Om Prakash ji and attended by Pradeep Kedia , Ashok Vaidya and others. The businessmen of Nepal said the criminal gangs of Bihar, which were in hibernation for the past ten years, have resurfaced in Tarai of Nepa .