Patna, April 12: A woman’s ploy to kidnap and subsequently kill the only child of her brother to pocket Rs 20 lakh ransom and grab his land with the help of her paramour went kaput as police zeroed in on her tracking the ransom calls made from her fiancé’s cellphone.

The woman, Renu Devi, and her two associates, were arrested last night. The 14-year-old boy, Rakesh Kumar, was rescued from Koria Halt railway station in Jagdishpur, around 80km from the state capital.

Renu’s paramour, Jeetendra Singh, is absconding. The arrested aides of Renu have been identified as Nirmala Devi, the wife of Jeetendra, and Ajay Kumar.

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Alok Kumar said Rakesh, a Class VIII student of the city-based Gyan Niketan School, did not return from school last Saturday till late evening. With Rakesh’s father, Ramesh, in New Delhi for some official work, his mother lodged a missing diary with the Bihta police station.

The next day Ramesh received several ransom calls on his mobile.

“The first call came around 12noon. I was told my son had been kidnapped. I immediately called my wife asking her to rush to the police station. In the next 20 minutes, I received at least eight calls. The kidnapper demanded Rs 20 lakh for safe release of my son. Else, my son would be killed, the abductor threatened,” Ramesh told The Telegraph.

“The police tracked the mobile phone number from which Ramesh received the ransom calls and found it to be of Jeetendra, a native of Bhojpur, who had been living in Bihta on the outskirts of Patna. A special team constituted under the superintendent of police (rural), Vivek Kumar, discovered that the SIM card was registered in the name of Renu, the aunt of Rakesh. The police nabbed her and she spilled the beans during interrogation,” the SSP said.

“Since Jeetendra was a neighbour of Rakesh, he did not hesitate to go with him after school last Saturday. The boy was taken to the Jagdishpur area in the Bhojpur district and kept in the house of Nirmala Devi, the wife of Jeetendra. He was administered several sedative injections and was mostly unconscious after he was abducted.

The police raided the house of Nirmala yesterday and recovered a mobile phone, Rakesh’s schoolbag and some injection vials. But Nirmala fled before the police reached her house with the boy and her associate, Ajay,” the officer said.

The police team followed the duo, who finally left the boy near Koria Halt railway station, and tried to flee. But they were arrested.