Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata is surrounded at all times by his company's own armed guards. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya is always accompanied by a burly South African and a Briton. "I am a kidnap target," acknowledges Mallya. Lesser businessmen too hire their own guards. Those in lawless expanses like Bihar raise private armies. Those who can't live with the tension of armed guards and surveillance simply pay up. There are no authentic figures but the police estimate that criminals earned about Rs 500 crore in ransom money last year.

It's so bad that some insurance companies now offer policies which ensure that if a key executive is kidnapped or killed, the company does not suffer a financial loss. The policies are closely guarded secrets. "If criminals know that certain personalities are covered by such policies, it will encourage kidnappings and hijackings," says H. Mohapatra, general manager, General Insurance Corporation, Mumbai. The policies have found many takers -- they could be worth Rs 75 crore for family owned businesses and more than Rs 500 crore for a Tata or Birla. Annual premia run into crores of rupees.

Money in these times of terror is a secondary issue. "Until this year, only the government bought bullet-proof cars. In the past seven months, 20 per cent of my sales have been to corporate houses and multinationals," says Ravi Rajput, chief executive of Firetech Industries, a manufacturer of bullet-proof cars in Delhi. His clients pay anything from Rs 8 lakh for a bullet-proof Ambassador to Rs 25 lakh for an armoured Mercedes. He was flooded with enquiries from all manner of industrialists -- builders to convenience-store owners -- after Gulshan Kumar was shot dead for refusing to capitulate to Mumbai's underworld.

Kidnappings for ransom are so much a reflection of the times that the Indian Penal Code was modified to separate them from ordinary kidnappings in 1994. If only statistics are considered, there appears to be no problems; since 1994, kidnappings for ransom nationwide have actually fallen from 1,371 to 1,136. Good news? If anything, say experts, this shows that things are worsening. The statistics, as police officials confess, indicate that fewer people are coming to the police. The decline is in the cases registered, not the incidence. Only one in three cases is ever reported now to the police.

Where do these marauding gangs of extortionists come from? In many places, there have always been these criminal entrepreneurs. Sundry militants in the past 15 years have made money from "foreign" businessmen in the North-east; the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) collected its Rs 300 crore corpus (the annual earnings of 100 tea gardens) during 1988-90. The underworld has always milked film producers in Mumbai. Even in supposedly calm Bangalore, aptly named goons -- like "Oil" Kumar controlling petrol stations and "Murgi" Fiyaz controlling chicken markets -- conduct their extortion rackets.

What's new is that the ranks of these shady operators are growing exponentially, their targets changing. Now extortion touches the lives of the cocktail circuit, as much as it does the paanwallah. The number of rich are increasing and their flashy cars and lifestyles are more visible. But growing at a faster pace are the semi-educated and chronically unemployed youth, who want to tread the fast track to the wealth they see around them (see box). It is they who form the new gangs, small-timers who find there is enough for everyone as kidnappings and extortion become a sunrise industry. "For young men who want quick money and are willing to take risks, kidnapping has become a way of life," says former Uttar Pradesh DGP Prakash Singh.

But poverty is certainly not the only factor. A collapsing police force and political protection to criminal gangs have led to a boom in ransom crimes, mainly in areas like western Uttar Pradesh -- the hotbed of kidnapping. In Bihar, where it is accepted as a necessary hazard in life, anyone is a target: magistrates, bank officers, engineers, even clerks. "Kidnapping for ransom is a highly professional business and it is spreading throughout the state," confesses igp Rameshwar Oraon. "People don't go to the police because they negotiate the ransom amount with the kidnappers and add their own fee, swelling the ransom amount," says farmer Vikram Ram, who spent 12 months in captivity. "It's cheaper to deal directly with the kidnappers."

Uttar Pradesh's growing criminal class is mainly responsible for the fear psychosis among Delhi's rich. Most wield Kalashnikovs and don't hesitate to fire them, as they did in the capital's exclusive Golf Links area when they kidnapped nine-year-old Tarun Puri, a businessman's son, in August. And they now operate with a sophistication that belies their origins. A secret Delhi Police dossier on Babloo Srivastava, who controls his 100-member gang from the confines of Allahabad prison, notes that he used 33 cellphones over time to avoid being tracked. His ransom calls are almost untraceable, and he has mastered teleconferencing. When he had hotel owner S.L. Pahwa kidnapped earlier this year, the ransom calls were made within Delhi but routed through Dubai. The "hits" are planned meticulously; gang members even take up jobs as salesmen or utility workers to get near their targets. Srivastava's victims are picked after their black-money holdings are researched. They pay up easily. Ransoms from Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 9 crore -- recorded in police files but never reported -- have been paid by Delhi businessmen who prefer this to having their own cans of worms opened to enforcement agencies.

In May, a gang from the north sought targets in Bangalore by looking for people driving Mercedes Benzs. They hired a palatial house to legitimise their supposed affluence, paid a rent of Rs 1.5 lakh a month and waited for three months. Their initial target was BPL Ltd Managing Director Ajit Nambiar. But he flew off to Delhi on the day of the hit and another businessman driving a Mercedes, Nirmal Kumar Jaipuria, was kidnapped instead. The ransom demand -- Rs 5 crore -- certainly justified the investments. It is another matter that the kidnap effort failed.

Gangs from Uttar Pradesh are large and well connected, so even if some members are arrested, witnesses don't dare to come forward. When notorious don Mukhtar Ansari, considered close to BSP leader Mayawati, and two of his men were arrested for the kidnapping of businessman Ved Prakash Goel in the Delhi's Punjabi Bagh three years ago, the case seemed solid. There were 27 witnesses. All turned hostile. The Goels refused to identify Ansari. The don celebrated his acquittal at Uttar Pradesh Bhavan, the government guest house.

Social inequity and the politician-criminal nexus are not going to go away, so expect a rise in extortion and kidnappings. The key to turning the tide is to raise the abysmal conviction rates of kidnappers, say officials. That can happen only when witnesses feel secure enough to give evidence. The Delhi police are now trying a witness-protection programme. Chemist Bishambar Nath Bhatia whose son was kidnapped and killed is the first such beneficiary. He feels secure enough to give evidence against the men who tore his life asunder in March this year. The police urgently need to convince more people to do what the chemist is doing. If that doesn't happen, protect yourself as best as you can. Welcome to the new world of insecurity.

Write to us | Subscriptions

© Living Media India Ltd