A bus owner allegedly taken for a ride by a schoolboy abducted the teenager and his friend from a procession in Belur commemorating Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary on Monday.

Students and teachers of Ghusuri High School, in Howrah, were stunned when Subrata Choudhury and his men plucked out Satyajit Chatterjee, 17, and Raju Shaw, 16, from the procession near Belur Math around 1.30pm. They bundled the boys into a cherry red Maruti van and sped away.

A couple of hours later police rescued the two teenagers from the runaway vehicle in front of Raja Peary Mohan College in Uttarpara. The abductors — Choudhury, Bankim Ghosh, Barun Mukherjee and Amar Ghosh — were then arrested.

“It appears that Satyajit had been avoiding Choudhury, his employer for a day, after taking Rs 2,600 from him. The transporter couldn’t take the humiliation of being duped by a boy and was desperate to teach him a lesson,” said an officer at Uttarpara police station.

Satyajit, a Class X student, left home on Saturday after a fight with his father Manik, who ferries goods on a hand-pulled trolley for a living. He went to the office of Choudhury Rangers, a transport company, and approached the owner for a job. The boy claimed that he needed money for his education and Choudhury fell for it, the police said.

Satyajit worked as the driver and conductor’s assistant on one of the buses for a day and asked for an advance of Rs 2,600, to be deducted in instalments from his daily wage of Rs 150. Choudhury gave him the money and the schoolboy went back home on Sunday morning after spending the night in a bus.

Raju Shaw and Satyajit Chatterjee

Choudhury realised he had been tricked when he called Satyajit on Monday afternoon to enquire why he hadn’t reported for duty. The boy gave his cellphone to Raju, a class junior to him in school, and asked him to tell his ‘employer’ he was not at home.

The bus owner dialled Satyajit’s number again on Monday but the calls went answered. Choudhury made enquiries and came to know that the boy’s school would be taking out a procession to Belur Math in the afternoon.

“Choudhury and his henchmen lay in wait outside the school. When the procession came out, they followed it till the GT Road entrance to Belur Math,” a sleuth said.

Before approaching Satyajit, two of Choudhury’s men — one was with him in the car and the other two on a motorbike — took their boss’s cellphone and dialled the boy’s number. Satyajit took one look at the number and passed the phone to Raju, who again said that his friend was not around.

Teacher Subhas Pal told the police that he saw two men grabbing Raju’s collar and then picking up Satyajit, who was trying to run away. “Everything happened in a flash. They were gone within seconds,” he said.

Pal had the presence of mind to jot down the number of the Maruti van. He called Bally police station and all exit routes were sealed.

The Howrah superintendent of police, Niraj Kumar Singh, said Choudhury and his men have been booked for abduction and will be produced in court on Tuesday.