Patna, Sept. 25: A special police team probing into an abduction case stumbled upon clues leading to a plan being hatched by a woman to get her husband murdered by her paramour, but could not stop the crime.

Sheela Rai alias Soni Rai, a resident of Kaimur, was arrested for getting her husband Bharat Rai murdered in connivance with Guddu Yadav, with whom she had an illicit relationship.

Sheela and Guddu’s misdeed came to the fore when police launched a manhunt for Naval Kishore Sah, a city-based tea-seller abducted earlier this month.

Sheela used to supply women to Sah. The police said Sah was kidnapped after being called to Kaimur, about 190km from here, by Sheela on September 12. This time too, Sheela had sought Guddu’s help, the police said.

“Two days after Sah went missing, his wife received a ransom call of Rs 20 lakh. He used to live in a lodge in the Kumhartoli area under Kankerbagh police station. After an FIR was lodged on September 17, we started investigations,” city central superintendent of police Shivdeep Lande told The Telegraph today.

A special police team was constituted, which launched a massive manhunt. After thorough investigation, the team learnt about the abducted tea-seller’s connections with Sheela — she used to supply women to Sah and a few others.

“Sheela had called up Sah on his mobile and asked him to come to Kaimur for a meeting with another woman. On the basis of the call details made to and from Sah’s cellphone, the police got Sheela’s mobile number,” Lande said.

“The police started intercepting calls made by Sheela. She asked Sah to come to Ramgarh, about 40km from Baharia village. Guddu received Sah at Ramgarh and took him to Baharia under Chand village police station. The tea-seller was then handed over to Ram Pyare Bind, another criminal involved in keeping kidnapped people in his custody in return of Rs 5,000 each day,” the officer added.

On the basis of the tower location of Sheela’s cellphone, a police team was sent to Kaimur immediately.

As the police kept on intercepting Sheela’s phone calls, a conversation between her and Guddu shocked the team tracking the case.

“Sheela asked Guddu to kill someone, saying that the latter was causing a lot of trouble for her. The special investigation team members thought that she had given direction to kill Sah. The team was put on alert and asked to stop the crime at any cost. However, it was too late by then as the team members found the body of a man near a stream at Ramgarh. But it was not Sah’s,” the SP said.

“The police ordered the special team to arrest Sheela after Guddu called her up on her cellphone and told her that the person had been killed. Until the body was found, we were under the impression that Sah was murdered. But once we found the body, we realised that it was someone else,” he added.

The police arrested Sheela on Friday. Initially, she refused to admit to her crime. But when the police showed her the body, she broke down and identified the victim as Bharat.

“Once we played the recorded phone tapes, she admitted to have hatched the conspiracy to murder her husband. The woman also divulged Sah and Guddu’s whereabouts,” Lande said.

The police on Friday rescued Sah from Baharia. Guddu and his associate, Bind, were arrested.

At present, Sheela, Guddu and Bind are in the custody of Patna police. According to sources, the trio would be produced before court anytime this week.

Lande said Sah’s abduction has once again reminded the police of the infamous “delivery system of kidnapping”, a feature that was common in the late 90s.

The way Bind had received Sah from Guddu and kept the tea-seller confined in lieu of money is known as the “delivery system of kidnapping”.