Abducted exec's story has "several strange facts": Police

The Ghaziabad police have said that the statement made by Dipta Sarna, the 24-year-old Snapdeal executive who had been abducted on her way home from work on Thursday night but later released, raises several questions, reports The Indian Express.

Ghaziabad Senior Superintendent of Police Dharmendra Singh said: "The abductors told her that they had been tracking her movements for nearly 14 months. They also knew her favourite brand of chips. But she told them that her name was Sneha. We asked her, how could they not have known her name for 14 months?"

Sarna, 24, had phoned her family on Friday morning to say that she was returning home by train from Panipat in Haryana because she had been released by her abductors. She had given the police a statement after returning home and resting.

Singh said the police were verifying every aspect of Sarna's statement, though they have not yet decided to counter-question what she said. "She has not been able to tell us where they had abandoned the autorickshaw in which she was allegedly abducted. There are a lot of things that need to be examined. We are giving her some time to rest," he said.

Sarna told the police that she had been abducted near Raj Nagar Extension after an auto she took from Vaishali metro station broke down near Mohan Nagar. She then took a shared auto, which had four men and one woman as passengers. Alarmed when the auto driver took an unfamiliar route, she called out. The woman passenger jumped out, but Sarna was held by the four male passengers. "She said that they pulled her hair, slapped her once after she started screaming. She said that she was blindfolded," Singh said. "She told us that the autorickshaw was abandoned at some point and they moved her to a two-wheeler and later a car. They even gave her food. Late Thursday night, they left her at a railway station, telling her to board a train to New Delhi. The abductors allegedly told her that 'some person' had earlier wanted to meet her. However, after the mounting pressure to find Dipti, the person declined to meet her."

The police have appealed to the woman sharing Sarna's auto to come forward, but she has not done so as yet. "There are several strange facts in the story narrated by Dipti and they need to be verified," said Singh.

"Three autorickshaw drivers claimed to have met this girl at the auto stand. The drivers told police that she appeared scared and told them that she was with another woman in the autorickshaw when the driver forced her to get down at knife point," said Vijay Pratap, Circle Officer, Ghazaibad.

"One of the drivers claimed to have reached the place where the incident occurred. Other drivers immediately alerted a police team deployed nearby. When all three autodrivers returned to the spot, they found the girl had gone," said Pratap.

So far, the police have collected CCTV footage of Sarna from the Vaishali Metro station, and noted that her cellphone was switched off at 9.06 pm at Nandgram.