Guwahati, July 7: An employee of Oil India Limited (OIL) has claimed that unidentified men kidnapped him from here on July 2, took him to a hideout in Nepal via Siliguri and then set him free after realising it to be a case of mistaken identity.

Rajen Gogoi, 47, who went missing on July 2 but returned safely last night, told police that he was abducted by two unknown men from near Standard Chartered Bank in Guwahati but released unharmed on Sunday night somewhere in Nepal after they realised that they had picked up the “wrong” person.

According to Gogoi, the abductors had targeted another person but ended up kidnapping him.

The police said according to his statement, he was walking down GNB Road towards Ambari when two men accosted him near the bank and forced him into a Maruti 800 car and sped away.

Gogoi said the incident occurred around 5pm on Thursday. “The abductors then drove overnight and reached Siliguri the next morning. They changed vehicles and switched to a jeep near the railway station and drove to Nepal,” a police officer quoting Gogoi said.

The officer said the abductors then took the victim to their hideout somewhere in Nepal and held him captive there. “After sometime, a third person appeared and told the abductors that they had picked up the wrong person. He said Gogoi was not the one he wanted,” he said.

Thereafter, the kidnappers freed him at Bharatpur in Nepal on Sunday evening. “Gogoi spent the night at a hotel in Bharatpur.

The next morning, he travelled to Siliguri before calling up his family and informing them that he was safe,” the police officer said. He boarded the Nalanda Express and reached Guwahati around 8 last night.

“We are not closing the case and the matter is being investigated. We have recorded his statement and will have to take help of West Bengal police to verify it,” the police officer said.

As Gogoi remained missing since July 2 evening and his mobile phone was switched off, his family lodged a missing person’s complaint with the police on Saturday. Based on the complaint, the police registered a case at Paltan Bazar police station.