Patna: Rakesh Kumar, alias Chunnu Thakur, a gangster who hit the headlines for the 2005 abduction of DPS student Kislay Gupta from Patna, has been arrested in another extortion case.

The extortion case was lodged with Ahiyapur police station in Muzaffarpur district in November last year. Thakur was taken into custody on Saturday while he was undergoing treatment at a private nursing home in Muzaffarpur, 80km north of Patna.

Police sources said Thakur and two of his associates had met with an accident near Patahi cold storage on the Muzaffarpur-Saraiya road late on Thursday night and were admitted to a private hospital in Bairia. Ahiyapur police station house officer Dhananjay Kumar told the court on Saturday that Thakur was undergoing treatment under police custody.

Over a dozen cases of murder, extortion and kidnapping are lodged against Thakur, a resident of Gannipur locality in Muzaffarpur town, in Muzaffarpur, Vaishali and Patna districts.

In his 40s now, Thakur allegedly hatched the abduction plan of Kislay while being lodged in Hajipur district jail.

Kislay's abduction from Patna's Patel Nagar had drawn the attention of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee too, who at a public meeting asked: " Mera Kislay kahan hai (Where is my Kislay?)". A team soon raided Thakur's house in Muzaffarpur and arrested his wife Kiran Thakur. "The arrest of his wife forced the kidnappers to release the boy," recalled an IPS officer who was then posted in Patna.

The police had nabbed him from Vaishali district in 2015, in a robbery case. Then in November 2017, Shahbazpur resident Manoj Singh from Muzaffarpur had lodged an extortion FIR against Thakur. His name figured in the abduction of businessman Shyam Lal Sah in Vaishali district in 2000 and Dayanand Jha from Darbhanga. Sources said Sah was released after the family paid Rs 26 lakh ransom, and Jha released for Rs 50 lakh.

Thakur joined the JDU in 2013, but was dropped by chief minister Nitish Kumar as soon as he came to know of Thakur's criminal antecedents. A senior posted with the special task force said cases of extortion and Arms Act are lodged against Thakur in Samastipur, Darbhanga and Madhubani districts.