A seriously injured Navy official, with serious burns on his body, was found in Maharashtra’s Palghar on February 5. He later succumbed to his injuries on Saturday.
The official, identified as 27-year-old Suraj Kumar Dubey, was a resident of Ranchi in Jharkhand. He was abducted from Chennai and brought to Maharashtra. The kidnappers burned him alive as he refused to pay them a ransom of ₹10 lakhs.
“A case has been registered against three unidentified persons and a probe has been initiated,” said Palghar SP Dattatray Shinde. Shinde added that Suraj Kumar Dubey succumbed to his injuries on Saturday after being shifted to a Mumbai hospital for further treatment.
“The navy officer refused to pay a ransom of ₹10 lakhs. The locals informed police, then brought him into the district civil hospital, later in Mumbai. He was abducted near the Chennai airport,” said Shinde.
Police say that Dubey’s car was hijacked by three men from Chennai airport on January 31. He was confined at an undisclosed location in Chennai for three days. Subsequently, he was brought to the forests in the Western Ghats of Vevji village in Talasari taluka near the Maharashtra-Gujarat border around 9 am on February 5.
After seeing a naked man in the forest around noon, the locals informed the Vevji police station under Gholwad police station. A case has been registered against the three unidentified kidnappers under Sections 302, 364, 392 and 34 at the Gholwad police station.
Palghar is also the site of the infamous and gruesome lynching of Sadhus by a mob of over two hundred people. The video of the lynching of the two men in saffron cloths was widely shared on the internet and shook the conscience of the entire nation. Three men were brutally attacked right in front of the police, who stood as mute spectators.
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