Rajiv recalls bits & pieces

Calcutta, June 4: Rajiv Bhattacharya, the IBM employee who went missing two days before his wedding, claimed that his abductors took him off the train at Asansol, Burdwan and Bokaro stations en route to Mughalsarai.

Each time, they boarded a different train to proceed with their journey. At every stop, the abductors would first beat him up and then call up his Salt Lake residence, Bhattacharya told Uttar Pradesh police.

However, police here insisted that there were no calls from the alleged abductors to his Salt Lake home and that there is ?more to it than meets the eye?. They were also reluctant to accept Bhattacharya?s claim that he was abducted.

While Bhattacharya remembers having changed trains thrice, he is not sure how he boarded Mumbai Mail, which took him to Mughalsarai where he was spotted yesterday.

?Rajiv, it appears, was abducted, though it is not clear why. In his statement to GRP (Government Railway Police), he has said the abductors called up his residence for ransom from every stop where he was made to get off the train and change,? said Laxmi Narayan Yadav, the GRP inspector-in-charge at Mughalsarai.

Yadav handed over details of Rajiv?s statements to a four-member team from Calcutta police that went to bring him back. The 31-year-old is likely to return to the city on Sunday.

?There are discrepancies in what Rajiv is saying, but you cannot expect us to hound him for statements. He claims to be sick and we need time,? said Jawed Shamim, the deputy commissioner of police (eastern suburban division).

Rajiv said his pain was killing. ?Byatha aar jonotronatey aami aar parchhi na (I can?t bear the pain). There are many things that I cannot recall? like how I reached this station. But I remember they beat me up severely, all over the body. Let me reach Calcutta... I will tell you everything. Now, I can?t even talk,? he told The Telegraph soon after being released from Kabir Chowra District Hospital in Varanasi.

Besides the city police team, his cousin Partha Chakrabarty was there to receive him outside the hospital.

Uttar Pradesh police handed over details of the youths, who allegedly picked up Bhattacharya from outside a shop in Ultadanga on Wednesday.

They believe that the injuries were not self-inflicted and that Bhattacharya did not run away to duck marriage. ?Based on what he said, we informed Calcutta police that he was frisked away as he walked out of a shop after buying battery for a cordless phone. Three to four youths, who spoke Hindi, took him inside a car and started beating him. There are injuries all over him, including private parts, but he is fit to return,? said K.P. Singh, the Railway Protection Force sub-inspector who first spotted him.