A youth was arrested on Tuesday on charges of abducting his brother-in-law, a teenager, in an attempt to force his estranged wife to return to him.

Police said Dharmendra Singh, 27, picked up 13-year-old Manu Dubey while he was returning home from school on Monday. Dubey’s family lodged a complaint after his friends said they saw him with Singh.

Singh had eloped with Dubey’s sister Madhu four months ago. But after marriage he allegedly started torturing her, forcing her to return to her parents’ house in Howrah’s Rameswar Malia Lane.

“He often threatened us with dire consequences if Madhu was not sent back to him. He has abducted my son because we refused to send our daughter,” said Dubey’s father Ramdev.

According to Dubey, Singh asked him to accompany him to a relative’s house. They went to Serampore and stayed in a relative’s house. Next morning, they went to Barasat. “Around 12.30pm, Singh took me to Howrah and handed me over to three of his friends,” Dubey said.

Singh panicked on seeing the news of the abduction on TV and asked his friends to return the boy. “We detained three youths. But when Singh called up and said he wanted to surrender, we let them go,” the officer said.