How a Captain ‘raised false alarm’ of kidnapping

Tribune News Service
Ropar, February 23

A "false alarm" of his kidnapping by an Army Captain that kept the force, national intelligence agencies and district police on their toes on Friday turned out to be a “panic reaction” after a road accident. 

The district police intercepted the cars of the “accused” and the “victim” within an hour around 9.15 pm on Saturday after the Army officer raised the alarm. It turned out that Captain Vikram Solanki had pressed the panic button after a road accident.

According to sources, Captain Solanki who was on leave was returning with his four friends from Kasol, near Kullu, in Himachal Pradesh when their Polo car came to a halt abruptly in the middle of road. Due to the sudden applying of brakes, a Santro car that was coming from behind allegedly hit the Polo car near Himachal-Punjab border. Enraged, the five occupants of Santro, who belonged to Sonepat in Haryana, reportedly asked for compensation against damage to their car. 

The Captain and his friends reportedly agreed to pay the damages after reaching Chandigarh, following which two occupants of Santro car boarded the Polo car in which Captain was sitting while two if his  friends shifted to the Santro car. 

Sources said on the way both the sides cooled down and even had tea at a dhaba near Kiratpur Sahib where the Sonepat residents paid for refreshments.

Meanwhile, Captain Solanki had reportedly flashed messages from his cell phone to his friends that he was “kidnapped by some armed persons”. He even reportedly sought to press Army’s quick reaction force to get the “accused” nabbed. Following this, the location of Captain Solanki was traced and Ropar cops intercepted both the cars near Bann Majra village on Ropar-Chandigarh road. 

Senior officers of Army also reached the spot. On coming to know the actual “kidnapping”story, they reportedly gave a dressing down to the Captain, sources said.

According to police, proceedings have been initiated to register a case under Section 182 of the IPC (offence of giving false information with an intent to cause a public servant use his lawful power to the injury of another person) against Captain Solanki and his friends, identified as Arvind Kumar, Bal Indu Rai, Rishav Ujjwal and Raman Kumar Singh.

The occupants of Santro car identified as Deepak Singh, Dharmender Singh, Neeraj Kumar, Vihal Kumar and Sandeep Singh were booked under Sections 107 and 151 CrPC (power of police to arrest to avoid commision of cognizable offence).