SRK’s Darr inspired accused arrested for abducting Snapdeal exec Dipti

Police arrested five people on Monday in connection with the abduction of a 24-year-old Snapdeal employee, who returned unharmed last week after a massive manhunt for her received unprecedented social media support.

Ghaziabad senior superintendent of police Dharmendra Singh said the main accused in the case was a psychopath who was involved in a one-sided love affair with the woman.

“It is just like a case portrayed in Bollywood movie ‘Darr’ where Shah Rukh Khan is involved in a one-sided affair. The prime accused was just like a psycho and lived in a virtual reality. The criminals are hardcore. We are verifying whether the men are auto drivers or not,” said Singh.

Officials said the accused followed Dipti around for over a year after he first saw her in a Metro. He didn’t harm her as he wanted to gain her affection, they said.

“I never had an inkling that someone could be following me as the Metro is crowded and I always boarded the ladies compartment. I remained puzzled throughout the abduction as to where and why I was being taken. Also it was strange that even after abducting me, they did not harm me,” said Dipti.

Police said they recovered a car and an auto and that none of the five arrested were linked to the victim.

The arrest came hours after the Ghaziabad Police took Dipti for a crime reconstruction from river Hindon to Morti village on Sunday evening.

Dipti returned home last Friday and said four men who had abducted her 36 hours earlier released her and left her at a suburban railway station.

She had gone missing after being allegedly whisked away from an autorickshaw in Ghaziabad when she was returning from work on Wednesday evening, sparking a police search across two states.

Ghaziabad senior superintendent of police Dharmendra Singh, who questioned Dipti at her residence for more than hour on Saturday, had said he sought details related to her educational institutions and other companies she worked earlier.

“I can say that there is someone behind this who knows her. She has told (us) that she do not know people involved in the incident. But we suspect that the mastermind could be some known person,” Singh said.

Stating that she had revealed additional facts, the SSP had said the involvement of professional criminals behind the incident was remote.

But police officials involved in the investigations said they are still unclear about the motive behind the incident.

According to Dipti, she was driven in an i10 car and made to walk long distances, kept in a sugarcane field the next day before the abductors decided to leave her at a suburban railway station near Narela.

“There are a lot of strange things like abductors leaving her at a railway station and also making her walk 30-40km. These are being verified,” the SSP added.

After she left her Gurgaon office on February 10, Dipti had shared an auto from outside Vaishali metro station. She said the auto broke down halfway at Mohan Nagar, forcing the passengers to board another auto to the old bus stand in Ghaziabad. But minutes later, the only other woman passenger in the auto was forced to get off at knifepoint by the four men in the vehicle, somewhere near the Hindon river, she said.

The men allegedly snatched Dipti’s bag and mobile but not before a friend she was speaking with on the phone heard her scream.

Dipti’s last mobile location was found near a secluded area leading to Raj Nagar Extension.

The police said they found it strange that the driver of the second auto got involved with the three other abductors.

She had also told police that the abductors told her they knew about the brand of chips she liked.

The family had said on Friday that the four men treated her well after the initial assault in the auto and put her on a Delhi-bound train, handing her a Rs100 note.