A 24-year-old aspiring film director in Chennai city staged a kidnap drama to raise funds for his short film project and was arrested by city police on Sunday from Secunderabad. If the fake kidnap drama was to achieve the target amount of Rs 30 lakh for his short film, those who were targeted in the staged incident were his parents.
Police said the youth, hailing from an upper-middle-class family in the city, had tried his best to get funds from his parents for the short film project. “After his father, who works for a financial consulting firm in the city, refused to pay him, he staged a drama. He left home on Thursday, and his parents were told that he was going to a shopping mall in Vadapalani. As he didn’t return that day, they searched for him. That is when they received a call from an unknown number seeking a ransom amount to release him. The caller told them to bring Rs 30 lakh to a particular place in Telangana and warned that police should not be informed,” a senior officer who handled the case said.
Parents agreed to pay the ransom. However, they had informed the police by then. Police managed to trace the location of the caller to Telangana. Even before the ransom was to be paid, two police teams rushed to Secunderabad and launched a search in hotels and lodges there. “In one of the rooms, finally, we found the missing youth and his two friends, who were sitting and talking. They had taken a new SIM card to make those calls for the money. The youth confessed that he staged the drama along with his friends to extract money for the short film project,” the officer said.
On Monday, the youth was allowed to go with his parents after a warning by the police.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chennai/chennai-film-director-stages-kidnapping-short-film-7730097/
