Shahrukh Khan’s character in ‘Darr’ was an inspiration.
By Sreekanth A Nair
After four days of uncertainty, the Ghaziabad police arrested the prime accused in the Snapdeal executive Dipti Sarna abduction case. The police revealed that the prime accused is a psychopath who kept a one-sided love affair with Sarna and abducted her in hope of her falling in love with him.
The accused was inspired by the Shahrukh Khan-starrer Bollywood movie ‘Darr’ in which the lead role character gets obsessed with a woman. He also while in jail on a previous charge had read Adolf Hitler’s autobiography ‘Mein Kampf’ and works on the life of Genghis Khan. The police said that there were 20 cases registered against him.
“The accused was highly inspired by Bollywood movie Darr, in which Shahrukh Khan’s character gets obsessed with a woman, he read Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ during the time he spent in jail and was inspired by the relationship between Hitler and Eva Braun, and he also took inspiration from the life and struggle of Genghis Khan,” Ghaziabad SSP Dharmendra Singh told media.
He escaped from police custody in June 2014, when he was taken to a court in Sonepat.
According to the police, he first saw Sarna at Rajiv Chawk metro railway station in February last year and fell in love with her. Since then he started following her wherever she went.
“He has an eccentric streak. He knew what she wore, what she ate, whom she met,” the SSP said.
Understanding that she took an auto-rickshaw from Vaishali metro station, he bought two auto-rickshaws with plans to kidnap her and tried to do so several times. But his plans failed each time mainly because Sarna used to take a share-auto in which a female passenger was already present.
On February 10, he sought help from his friends for abducting the girl. He told them that he was planning to abduct a girl, who dealt in hawala money and carries the keys to her room in her purse. He told them if they pick her up, they will all get Rs 1 crore each and that she wouldn’t go to the police because it is hawala money.
On that day also Sarna took a share-auto from Vaishali, but the accused along with his friends dropped spikes ahead of her auto and managed to puncture the vehicle they were travelling in.
Then one of the accused came in his auto and offered to drop the passengers, including Sarna. Three of the accused were present in the auto.
The prime accused was also following in the car. Their plan was to escape in the car if anything went wrong. But the car also ran over the spikes and got punctured.
After a while, one of the accused in the auto forced other passengers in the auto to get down using a knife and he went with Sarna. The auto broke down after a while and they dropped her mobile phone and backpack and took her to the prime accused’s car and drove off.
During the journey, the car ran out of gas and then the prime accused took his brother’s car and resumed the journey.
During the journey, he tried to convince Sarna that a male friend of hers had some ulterior motives and that male friend was trying to abduct her and he was trying to rescue her.
“All the while he kept trying to calm the girl saying she would not be harmed. The men told her they were asked by someone to pick her up. They stayed overnight at Khera Hatana village in Baghpat,” the police said.
They kept held her the whole night and dropped her at Sangla Kala railway station. From there she took a train to Delhi and informed her parents through a co-passenger’s mobile phone that she was coming back.
SSP Dharmendra Singh said that Sarna didn’t know about the motives of the gang and that’s why she earlier requested the police not to take any action against them.