Ranchi, Aug. 29: Police are guarding the home of the owner of a private iron ore mine after gangsters, who had been threatening to take over his business for quite sometime, tried to abduct his 39-year-old son from Bariatu Road late at night early this week.
DIG South Chotanagpur Arun Kumar Singh confirmed the August 24 attack on Anand Kumar Jain, the son of Padam Kumar Jain (68), who owns Thakurari Iron Ore Mines near Tata Steel's Naomundi mines in West Singhbhum district.
"The matter is under investigation and very soon those involved will be arrested," Singh said, but refused to divulge details citing the sensitive nature of the case which has perhaps for the first time thrown up a peculiar challenge to the police - a direct threat to take over the mining business of an entrepreneur as opposed to the more common extortion attempt.
Police sources revealed the gang began its takeover attempt on July 24 when six armed men barged into the office of the Jains at Ratan Lal Compound on Main Road in the heart of the city and asked Anand to set up a meeting of their boss with his father.
Three days later on July 27, a gang member who identified himself as Veer Pratap Singh called Anand and threatened him for not arranging the meeting.
The next day, an agent of the Jains, Neeraj Sharma, was attacked and an FIR was lodged at Barbil police station in Odisha, the sources said.
Again on July 29, the Jains received a call saying the Barbil attack was because the Jains weren't dithering over the meeting. From then on, the Jains started receiving threat calls every day.
Sensing trouble, Padam Jain agreed to meet the boss of the gang on August 9 at Hotel Capitol Hill.
At that meeting, the man who claimed to be the boss of the gang asked him sign an agreement handing over the mines to them.
Padam refused, the sources said, pointing out that the lease of the mine had expired and that an application for its renewal was pending before the mining department.
"The man left the hotel and asked Padam to sign the agreement at the earliest and leave the renewal formalities to them," said a policeman involved in the investigation.
The Jains received another threat call on August 21 and three days later, Anand's car was intercepted by a group of men on Bariatu Road at 11pm. The Jains claimed it was an abduction attempt as a result of which the windshield was damaged.
Anand said the developments were extremely worrying. "This is a new crime trend in which a criminal, instead of asking for money, wanted to take over the mines by signing an agreement. This is wrong in the eyes of law as the lease of our mines has lapsed and an application of its renewal is pending," he said.
The police, the sources said, had got CCTV footage of Padam's August 9 meeting at Capitol Hill, while the Jains had passed on recordings of some of the conversations they had had with members of the gang during July and August.
