One held for kidnapping bid on actor; kin claim other accused making threats

The Oshiwara police have arrested one of the two people who allegedly attempted to kidnap a 29yearold actor Anusheel Chakrabarty last month and sought to demand a Rs 20lakh ransom from his motherThe police nabbed the accused Saif Ahmad KamrulHuda Siddique 23 with the help of call data records of the alleged mastermind and former friend of the actor Ahmad Imtiyaz 25 who is absconding The complainants father has alleged that Imtiyaz has been sending threatening voice messages in a bid to get the family to drop the caseThe incident occurred in the wee hours of January 7 on the Eastern Express Highway between Vikhroli and Ghatkopar Chakrabarty who had visited south Mumbai and Chembur the previous day with Imtiyaz was being driven to Jogeshwari where he resides by the latter who was also the owner of the vehicle On reaching Ghatkopar Siddique entered the vehicle and pulled a pistol on Chakrabarty from the backseatImtiyaz then allegedly took the weapon and held it to the actors temple and told him to call his mother and demand the ransom Chakrabarty however managed to escape While the duo fled an auto driver helped the actor get home As he had sustained injuries his neighbours rushed him to Kokilaben hospital The Oshiwara police then registered an FIR but the case was later transferred to the Ghatkopar policeThe alleged masterminds vehicleDuring his interrogation Siddique told the police that he was unaware of a plot to kidnap the actor and that Imtiyaz who was his friend had asked him to purchase a lighter pistol to play a prank which would be content for a reel According to the police Siddique claimed he had purchased the lighter pistol from Andheri and on the day of the incident Ahmad called him and asked to bring it to GhatkoparAlso Read Mumbai Crime Man sets two SUVs on fire as revenge against builderrsquos employee arrestedldquoAhmad called me saying he was making a reel My role was to threaten a person sitting beside him with the pistol and say lsquoYou have kidnappedrsquo and I did this I thought it was nothing more than a prank but I was horrified to see what followed The actor hit me and Ahmed jumped out of the moving carrdquo Siddiquersquos statement to the police read The parents of the actor however believe both were equally responsibleChakrabartyrsquos father Anup said ldquoAhmad was a good friend of my son He knew about our financial status He used to borrow money from my son and he knew that he could demand a ransom from his mother after kidnapping himrdquo He added ldquoAhmad is still at large but he is threatening us continually by sending voice messages and images of himself with a pistol in his hands He is trying to pressure us into withdrawing the caserdquoldquoIn one voice message he said if he were arrested he would not be behind bars for the rest of his life I canrsquot imagine what he will do after being released He also claimed that his brotherinlaw is an MLArdquo Anup said An officer of the Oshiwara police station said ldquoWe arrested Siddique from Dharavi on February 7rdquoThe complainant and Imtiyaz who used to work as a casting director met four to five years ago at an acting training school in Andheri Chakrabartyrsquos parents are lawyers while his mother is also a producer Imtiyaz is a resident of Gonda district in Uttar Pradesh and his last location was Faizabad According to the police he is continually changing his location and mobile numberldquoIt seems someone is helping him A team has been sent to UP in order to nab the accusedrdquo said another officer Chakrabarty a native of Port Blair is a model and rising actor He won the title of Mr Andaman in 2015 He started his career with a music video by Zee Music Company He did a music video for B4U music and later acted in the Hindi film Gangs Of Stupid Lover7Day in Jan when incident occurred