Bhubaneswar: Dec. 13: Police yesterday rescued a 45-year-old employee of a construction company, hours after he was allegedly kidnapped by a few staff members of the same firm. Three persons have been arrested in this connection.

The police said that Gurupad Debnath, who used to work as a supervisor in a city-based firm, was kidnapped from Jatani yesterday.

The Saheed Nagar police rescued him hours later from a construction site near Bankual on the city outskirts.

The police said that Debnath, a native of Midnapore in Bengal, was abducted and brought to the city in an autorickshaw.

"Later, he was taken to a construction site in Bankual where he was assaulted. The accused had allegedly demanded a ransom of Rs 1.5 lakh from him. People in the neighbourhood heard the victim screaming and informed us," the police said.

The police managed to arrest three of the accused, while four others managed to flee the spot.

The arrested accused have been identified as Mur Salim, 27, Pintu Sheikh, 19, and Sukuruddin Sheikh, 19, all natives of Murshidabad in Bengal.

"The accused were arrested under sections 364(A), 323, 386 and 506 ," said inspector in-charge of Saheed Nagar police station Deepak Kumar Mishra.

The police said Debnath had been working in the construction company for 10 years.

The accused, however, denied charges of abduction and alleged that Debnath owed them Rs 1.15 lakh towards their wages.

"He engaged around 10 youths from Midnapore in the construction company four months ago. Since then, he has been denying us our wages. We were only provided with food all these months. When he was going to Jatni for supervising a construction site, we intercepted him and asked him for our wages," alleged one of the accused.

Woman kidnapped

A 20-year-old woman was allegedly kidnapped by three youths near Press Square in Chandrasekharpur police limits last evening.

Police said that the girl was travelling in a car with two male companions when they were intercepted by two youths on a motorcycle.

Sources said that the youths on motorcycle had an argument with the car driver and kidnapped the girl. They took her away in the motorcycle.

"We are verifying the allegations made by the male companions of the girl," said deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi.

Body found

The body of a man was found hanging on the Reserve Police campus near Jayadev Vihar today. The deceased, Binod Senapati, used to work as a cook at the police camp. The police suspect Binod of committing suicide. The body has been sent for post-mortem.