A 36-year-old Italian woman underwent a harrowing time after she was robbed and abducted within a few hours of landing in India.
The woman’s ordeal began soon after she arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) on Thursday and booked a pre-paid taxi.
The taxi driver took her to a dubious tourist office at Gole Market in New Delhi where she was robbed of 500 Euros. However, her nightmare did not end there as she was bundled into the boot of a car and forcibly taken to Chandigarh.
The woman somehow managed to escape and inform the Chandigarh Police and Italian Embassy at New Delhi. With the help of an official of the embassy, she lodged a complaint at the IGIA Police Station where an FIR was registered.
The Delhi Police arrested both the taxi driver and the employee of the travel agency on Sunday.
A police officer said, “With the help of technical surveillance, we were able to nab both the accused who were identified as taxi driver Nikki, alias Ravi, and tout Prithvi Raj.”
The victim, who had come to Delhi on a tourist visa, had booked a room at hotel Hare Krishna in Paharganj. After her arrival at IGIA she booked a taxi for the hotel.
“The driver told me that since elections were going on in Delhi all the roads were blocked and instead took me to a fake Government tourist office. On reaching the office, an old man came out and told me that my hotel had shut down. He also made a call on a fake number to make me believe that the hotel had actually shut down. I smelt a rat and asked for their WiFi password, which was shared by him. Then I immediately logged on to Facebook and wrote a message on my wall asking for help. But it was too late. The old man (Prithvi Raj) forced me into the boot of the car and drove me towards Chandigarh. On the way, he stopped the car, and made me lie down on the rear seat but covered me with a blanket and asked me not to shout or else I would have to face dire consequences,” alleged the victim in her complaint to the police.
Police said that as soon as they reached Chandigarh, the driver opened the back door of the car. It was then that the victim managed to push the man and escape.
With the help of locals she reached a Chandigarh police station and narrated the whole incident, after which the Delhi Police was informed by them.
“We are probing the matter further as there are more persons involved in the case. We are currently interrogating the arrested persons to get more information regarding the matter and know their modus operandi,” said the police officer.