A contract labourer eyeing a job in Saudi Arabia allegedly faked his abduction to extract money from his family and make the trip. Police said Bidyut Burman, 24, had admitted to the crime.

A resident of Gosaba, in the Sunderbans, Burman has been living in a rented room in Garden Reach for the past two months. He shares it with four others.

Bidyut went missing on May 26, while he was on his way to nearby Ramnagar, where he works. A few hours later, he called one of his friends in Ramnagar and uncle Tapan Burman in Gosaba.

He told both that four armed men had whisked him away in a car from Ramnagar to an “unknown” place in Habra, North 24-Parganas.

Bidyut told his uncle that the “abductors” had threatened to kill him if the family did not cough up Rs 60,000.

He urged Tapan to raise the money and wait for further instructions. But the uncle, instead, lodged a complaint with Garden Reach police station.

On the night of May 26, a police team “rescued” Bidyut from a friend’s house in Habra. “He was chatting with his friend when we turned up. The friend had no idea about Bidyut’s motive,” investigating officer Somen Banerjee said.

Right from the start, the police suspected Bidyut’s story. “Tapping his cellphone, we tracked him down to his friend’s house in Habra,” Banerjee added.

The youth was produced in Alipore court and released on a personal bond. The court asked the police to investigate the matter and produce a “detailed report”.

“Bidyut could not be arrested as we were acting on a complaint of abduction,” said K.A. Hashmi, the officer-in-charge of Garden Reach police station. “Bidyut had first asked his family for the money. But when he realised that his family would not come to his help, he plotted the abduction,” said Hashmi.