DUBAI // Three men who abducted a businessman and demanded a ransom of more than Dh400,000 were each jailed for a year yesterday.
The Criminal Court heard how A?J, 28, and N?A, 38, from Pakistan, and S?K, 30, from Afghanistan, kidnapped the 45-year-old Indian when he returned to Dubai after a two-month visit to his home country.
The victim knew N?A as they had been “involved in business together” a couple of years ago when he owned a shop in Deira.
They lost contact when he closed the shop but when he returned from India, N?A asked to meet him at a building in Al Aweer on May 15. When he arrived, he was locked up by the three men and told he owed his former associate Dh411,000.
He was kept in the room for five days and allowed only to make calls to his wife and sister in?India to arrange payment of the ransom.
On the fifth day, the businessman’s wife was told that if the kidnappers did not receive the money by the end of the day they would kill him.
She called her brother-in-law in Dubai and he told police.
Officers from Bur Dubai and Rashidiya tracked down the kidnappers and arrested them at the building in Al Aweer.
The court ordered the men to be deported after serving their prison terms.
salamir@thenational.ae
