A woman, one of the 10 people arrested for the abduction of Pratik Gupta, at Lalbazar on Friday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

A young woman from Delhi had lured Pratik Gupta, 20, to the trap laid by his abductors, police said on Friday.

Ten persons, including the woman, identified as Saheen Pathak, have been arrested and the entire ransom amount of Rs 20 lakh has been recovered. The mastermind, Sanjay Singh, an acquaintance of Pratik, is absconding. His wife Preeti was among those held.

Following the arrests, the sleuths claimed to have pre-empted another abduction that the gang had been plotting, using the same woman as the bait.

“Set up by Sanjay, who was also behind three other abductions, Saheen had called Pratik and invited him to dinner,” said an officer.

On March 9, the woman, in her early 20s, picked up Pratik in a car from his SN Banerjee Road apartment and drove to a restaurant in Tangra. Pratik ordered whisky and Saheen beer. After a while, when the youth went to the restroom, Saheen mixed some powdered drugs in his drink.

Pratik fell unconscious on drinking the spiked whisky. Saheen then took him away in a taxi and handed him over to the abductors near Science City. From there, he was driven to an abandoned railway quarters in Titagarh.

On March 19, Sanjay sent a packet by a courier to Pratik’s family. “The packet contained a letter and a cellphone SIM card bought in Gujarat. The letter said the family would get to know about Pratik by calling a particular number using the SIM,” the officer said.

Once a “safe” communication line was established, the kidnappers demanded Rs 1 crore for Pratik’s release.

“The demand was scaled down to Rs 20 lakh. On the night of March 25, Pratik’s father Prem Sagar and a relative carried the ransom in a briefcase and handed it over to a woman outside a Chittaranjan Avenue hotel,” said police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti.

“Early next day, the abductors brought Pratik to Sodepur, from where he returned home,” Chakrabarti added.

The woman who received the money is yet to be traced.