Kharar, April 20: Five students of Chandigarh University, Gharuan, were booked on Friday for allegedly kidnapping a fellow student and attempting to extort ₹1.5 lakh from his family, police said.
Two of the accused—Raghav, 25, from Ropar, and Poorav, 19, from Jaipur—have been arrested, while three others are absconding. All five have reportedly been expelled by the university.
The victim, 19-year-old Atharv Dhiman, a first-year B.Tech student from Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, was allegedly abducted from campus on Thursday evening. According to investigators, he was assaulted, forced into a car, and driven away.
“Four accused were in the car while the fifth, who personally knew the victim, was the mastermind behind the crime,” an officer said.
The incident came to light after a friend of Atharv witnessed the kidnapping and alerted the police. A team from the Gharuan police station immediately launched a chase.
Around 6:01 p.m., Atharv’s mother, Ridhi, received a phone call from her son, who sounded frightened. “He said he had been kidnapped and asked us to transfer ₹1.5 lakh,” said Amit Dhiman, the victim’s father and complainant. “We could hear the kidnappers threatening to kill him by throwing him into a canal if the money wasn’t transferred.”
Amit, a shopkeeper, also told police that his son had been physically assaulted, and the accused allegedly recorded an objectionable video to further intimidate him.
The kidnappers eventually abandoned Atharv near Ropar Canal after realizing police were close. The teen contacted his family at 8:49 p.m. and identified two of the abductors as his university peers.
The car used in the crime, a white Hyundai Creta with registration number PB-12AE-1091, was recovered. Police said it belongs to Raghav, a B-Pharmacy student.
Raghav was arrested near the university on Saturday morning, while Poorav, a second-year BBA student, was apprehended Friday evening from campus. The operation was led by SP Manpreet Singh, DSP Karan Sandhu, and SHO Balwinder Singh.
Three remaining suspects—residents of Uttarakhand and Rajasthan—are yet to be arrested.
An FIR has been lodged at Sadar Kharar police station under Sections 140(3) (kidnapping), 308(2) (extortion), 351(1) and 351(3) (criminal intimidation), and 3(5) (acts involving multiple persons) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
