Prafulla Bhagat was excited and happy. The 10-year-old could not contain his joy at being offered a "little spin" on a bike.

His parents were overjoyed. They waved at him as he hopped on to the rear seat of the bike of their former tenant, Sunny Orao.

Little did Ramdeo Bhagat realise that the "little spin" would result in the abduction of his son, a Class III student of DAV Public School at Gandhi Nagar in Jharkhand's Ranchi, who would spend 14 days in custody before landing in a Calcutta hospital on Saturday.

Prafulla has told his parents that an old man gave Sunny and him bananas to eat at Sealdah station "one night", after which he passed out.

Police suspect the old man was part of a gang and he possibly drugged Sunny and the kid after a deal they had struck fell through.

"It appears a gang was involved in the abduction. Sunny Orao was supposed to hand over the boy to them but there seems to have been a problem at the last moment, which is why the gang drugged both Sunny and Prafulla," said Jaya Roy, the city superintendent of police, Ranchi.

Roy said the motive would become clearer once more people were arrested.

Around 4.30pm on Sunday, the Jharkhand police team left Calcutta for Ranchi with Prafulla and his parents in a car.

Moments later, some other officers of the force boarded another car with Sunny, who they had arrested earlier in the day at the hospital, and left for the Jharkhand capital.

Ramdeo Bhagat, a surveyor with Central Mine Planning and Design Institute (CMPDI), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, said Sunny Orao had been a tenant at his home in Mission Galli in the Gonda police station area in Ranchi for six months in 2012.

At that time, Sunny, who hailed from Lohardaga in Jharkhand, was preparing for his Class X board exams, said Ramdeo.

He claimed that Sunny visited them on April 19 and offered to take Prafulla out for a spin on his bike.

"They rode off in front of our eyes and no one gave it much thought. When they failed to return till late in the evening, we lodged a police complaint," Prafulla's mother Basanti Kumari, a guard at Central Coalfields in Ranchi, said.

An FIR was lodged under Section 365 (kidnap with intention of secret wrongful confinement) of the IPC.

About the boy falling ill, Basanti said they did not know what exactly happened. "Prafulla told us an old man had given Sunny and him bananas to eat outside a station, after which he fell ill."

Sunny and Prafulla were both unconscious when porters at Sealdah took them to NRS Medical College and Hospital on Saturday morning, an officer at the hospital's police outpost said.

While Prafulla was admitted to the paediatric ward, Sunny had been given a bed in the medicine ward, allowing the cops to nab him tracking his mobile phone location.

Prafulla's parents arrived at the hospital with a Jharkhand police team on Sunday morning to take the boy back.

Hospital officials refused to divulge medical details about Prafulla or Sunny.

"Sunny made his first ransom call on April 26, seeking Rs 10 lakh for the boy's safe return. The family reported the matter and we tracked him down to Calcutta," Ranchi SP Roy said.

After negotiations stretching a couple of days, Sunny scaled down his demand to Rs 8 lakh, a family source said.

He claimed Prafulla had told his parents that Sunny had hit him.

Speaking about Sunny, Basanti said he was of mild disposition. "I cannot believe he did something like this," she said. "My son trusted him because he and Sunny used to play while Sunny was our tenant."

Hawkers clash

Two people were injured in a clash between two groups of hawkers, who run stalls under the Sealdah flyover, on Sunday morning. Krishna Pradhan, a hawker, and his wife Ragini sustained multiple injuries. Ragini is being treated at NRS Medical College and Hospital. A group of hawkers wanted to remove Krishna's stall, which led to the clash, said police. Two men have been arrested in this connection.

Building fire

A fire broke out in the electric meter box of a building on Sir Hariram Goenka Street in central Calcutta early on Sunday. A fire tender doused the flames. The reason behind the fire was lack of maintenance.