A nursing student, along with four friends, staged her own kidnapping in Jhansi to blackmail her family into paying Rs 6 lakh after she lost money in online betting, police said on Thursday.
When police traced the student's location first in Delhi and then in Noida, where they finally caught up with her, Nandini (19) admitted to making up the whole thing.
Jhansi Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sudha Singh said the woman revealed during interrogation that she was into online betting and had taken money from some of her friends but she ended up losing around Rs 2.5 lakh.
To compensate them, she staged her own kidnapping, placed a WhatsApp call to her father and demanded Rs 6 lakh as ransom, the SSP told PTI.
Singh said Nandini's father Bablu Raikwar of Todi Fatehpur lodged an FIR on Monday, alleging that she had been kidnapped and a ransom demand had been made.
During their investigation, the police found the student's location first in Delhi and then in Noida. When the Special Operations Group (SOG) and a police team reached Noida on Wednesday, the reality of the case came to light, the SSP added.
The official said that the student and her friends Hridayesh, Priyanshu, Shivam and Nandkishore have been arrested for being involved in the conspiracy and further investigations are underway.
