BENGALURU: A private bus was waylaid and its 42 passengers held hostage for three hours by seven men at a private parking lot in Rajarajeshwarinagar on Friday night just to recover a loan from a travel company. While four of the accused have been detained, three are on the run.
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Around 10pm on Friday, the bus, owned by Bengaluru-based Lama Travels, left Kalasipalya for Kannur in Kerala. Within minutes of its departure, the bus was waylaid by two bike-borne men posing as cops. The men asked the driver to deboard as they wanted to search the bus. One of them took to the wheel while the driver was forced to ride pillion with the biker.
The clueless passengers, including 10 women, were driven to a private parking lot in Pattanagere. Five other men joined the duo which had waylaid the bus and locked the vehicle. For the next three hours, the passengers were held hostage until police came to their rescue and apprehended four of the seven men.
Police said the miscreants were from Fullerton India Credit Company Limited, which had lent money to Lama Travels. They devised such a plan in a bid to recover the loan from the travel company. Ravi D Channananavar, DCP (West), said a complaint has been registered against the men under Sections 341 (wrongful restraint) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code.
‘Men who stopped bus said they were cops’
"We identified the travel company owner as Rafiq. He has been asked to appear before us and give a statement. The persons detained were not directly involved in waylaying of the bus. We're looking for three more men, including the two who stopped the bus," he said.
According to passengers, the bus left Kalasipalya at 10pm and reached Majestic around 10.25pm, where it stopped to pick up a few people and then headed to Mysuru Road. "When we reached the RR Nagar Arch, two men on a motorbike over took bus and stopped us. We heard some argument between the driver and the men. Some of us went to the cabin and the two men told us they were policemen," passenger Nayaz Pasha said.
"The man stopped the bus outside the gate of a huge parking lot. We heard security guards of the facility arguing with the men who had driven the bus. A little later, guards opened the gate and bus was taken in," said another passenger Prashanth Kumar.