The police are yet to make a breakthrough in abduction case of Nilamber Pitamber University’s contract engineer. The victim, Sammi Kumar, was taken in captivity by criminals on the Garhwa Shahpur road on Monday night and was released the next day morning.

Sources in the police said that the crime was committed by professional criminals who used an SUV with fake registration number for committing the crime.

SP Indrajeet Mahatha said that on police verification of the registration number it turned out to be that of a two wheeler. He said the crime was no spur of the moment but a planned one, as can be understood by the fact that the criminals used fake number plate. Speaking about the modus operandi of the criminals, SP said, “The criminals were trailing behind the car of the NPU personnel right from Garhwa, from where four employees of NPU had left for Daltonganj after attending a marriage function, on the night of Monday.”

The NPU officials informed the police that they were intercepted by criminals who behaved like security personnel on search mission. They took position on both sides of the car and asked the occupants to step down.

One version is that the criminals first wanted all lights in the car to be switched off.  The criminals were intelligent enough not to address themselves by any name.

Mahatha said that the criminals brought their vehicle up to Sadik Manzil chowk as can be seen in the cctv footage and then the vehicle took a turn towards Shahpur. “This was done to distract the police. The police is trying to nab the criminals,” he said. VC of NPU, SN Singh, registrar Rakesh Kumar and computer centre in charge MK Deepak remained with the four till the police took the statement of Sammi kumar on Tuesday morning.

Sammi Kumar was brutally beaten up and the criminals attempted to strangulate him which lead to Kumar having complaints of difficulty in swallowing food or water.