Patna: A conman who had duped several people by promising to get them jobs found a novel way of being rescued: He surreptitiously sent messages to the police that he had planted bombs at many places in the city.

For the past few days, senior Patna police officers were in a tizzy after receiving messages from a number saying that bombs have been planted at five places in Patna that can explode any time.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj constituted a team headed by Patna SP (central) D. Amarkesh, the sub-divisional police officer, and a few station house officers (SHOs). The police based on scientific investigation and intelligence inputs came to know that one Randhir Kumar Verma, who had duped several candidates by promising to providing them jobs, was missing from his house in the Rupaspur area for the past three-four days.

The cops raided the Rupaspur area and rescued Verma, who had been kidnapped by some of his job-racket victims, on Monday.

The police have arrested Verma and eight other persons who had kidnapped him.

"Verma was running fake employment agencies, one in Patna by the name of Job Provider on Boring Road, and two in Delhi - Airport Wings, and Raja Garden WZ-32 - for the past few months," said SSP Maharaaj. "Verma had duped several persons promising jobs at airlines and airports."

Verma's targets were unemployed engineering students. "As Verma was delaying providing jobs to the candidates, they started exerting pressure on him to return their money," Maharaaj said. "Later, some of the candidates made a plan to kidnap Verma."

Verma was kidnapped on January 31 from the Rupaspur area and his abductors had kept him at different places in Patna and Sasaram, said police sources.

Rupaspur police SHO Dipak Kumar said: "Verma had taken Rs 2 to 3 lakh from each candidate. He had duped more than a dozen candidates, collecting around Rs 50 lakh from them."

The SHO said that the kidnappers, who have no criminal background, didn't know that Verma had his mobile phone hidden inside his jacket.

"Verma, to attract police attention and to get rescued from the kidnappers, decided to send hoax bomb messages to senior police officials," the SHO added.