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'Kidnapped' Ramar Pillai found at homeopath's place

'Herbal petrol-maker' Ramar Pillai, who was allegedly kidnapped from his residence in suburban Virugambakkam in Madras on the night of May 8, was found in the house of a homeopath in Chrompet, near Madras, by a special police team this morning.

Pillai, who had hit the headlines after he claimed that he could produce petrol from herbs, had disappeared after he left his house on Saturday night to meet a teacher and enquire about the examination results of his sisters.

The police team, which traced him, took him to the St Thomas Mount police station.

On a complaint lodged by Pillai's mother, the police had formed 15 special teams to trace him.

Pillai was to have left for New Delhi on Saturday night to meet Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and seek early sanction for a patent for the 'herbal fuel he had invented'.

Announcing in the Tamil Nadu assembly this morning that Pillai had been traced, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi wondered whether his ''sudden disappearance and reappearance was genuine or a set-up''.

Karunanidhi said Pillai had stated before the police that he had 'left' his house on his own accord.

In a statement, Pillai informed Deputy Inspector General of Police (Chengalpattu range) Gandhirajan and Superintendent of Police Durairaj during interrogation that he was blindfolded and taken in a Tata Sumo on Saturday night by two unidentified persons.

Throughout the night, the duo kept asking him to disclose the 'herbal petrol formula'. However, he refused to disclose it, he told the officials.

Late last night, he was again blindfolded and dropped at the T B sanitorium in suburban Tambaram. A lady doctor, Jamuna, who spotted him, took him to her house.

UNI

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