Two youths have been arrested for allegedly threatening to kidnap the 12-year-old son of the director of a tea company if the family did not cough up Rs 20 lakh.

One of the youths had once been the executive’s driver.

The duo in their 20s, Mohammad Firoz and Naseem Khan, were picked up from their Tiljala homes on Wednesday night after police traced the cellphone from which the extortion calls had been made.

“Firoz used to work as driver at the complainant’s home for around three years. He left the job in 2007,” said the deputy commissioner of police (south), D.P. Singh.

“Firoz, now unemployed, had convinced friend Naseem, a tailor, to join the extortion plot,” said an officer involved in tracking down the duo.

The first extortion call came to the landline of the executive’s home at Alipore Estate on Alipore Road on September 12. The caller threatened to kidnap the boy, a student of Class VI at a south Calcutta school, if the family did not shell out Rs 20 lakh. A second call from the same number came the next day.

The executive, whose office is in central Calcutta’s Mangoe Lane, lodged a complaint with Alipore police station on September 14.

“The complainant’s phone has a caller line identification device, from which we came to know the number from where the threat calls came. The calls were tracked down to Firoz’s handset,” said an officer of the police station.

The duo were picked up before they could make a third call and tell the family when and where the money would change hands.

“Firoz and Naseem both admitted to the crime. Firoz had hoped that his former employer would meekly meet his demand for the sake of the boy’s safety. He never thought that the executive could muster the courage to go to police,” said an investigating officer. “The two have no past criminal records. Nor are they linked to any gang.”

The police cited a similar threat call that Entally trader Madhab Dhar had received a few months ago. Dhar had complained to the police that gangster Zafar Siddique, alias Gudda, who was lodged at Presidency jail, was threatening him with dire consequences if he didn’t pay him Rs 25,000.

A few days ago, Rourkela-based trader Amit Khandelwal was allegedly kidnapped from central Calcutta during his visit to the city last week. The police rescued him from Ranchi on Wednesday.