Residents of Noida and Greater Noida are soon going to get good news in the form of Noida International Airport. This will solve their traffic-related problems, and they will be able to catch a flight from Noida instead of going to Delhi Airport.
Few people tried to create a hurdle in the work. Five people, including a commercial airline pilot, were arrested on Saturday. They are accused of kidnapping three members of farmers who had given up land for the Noida International Airport, Jewar, to obstruct the project. Police said the motive of the accused was to obstruct the airport land acquisition and rehabilitation process by implicating police and administrative officials so that they could gain illegal economic benefits.
Farmer Hansraj, his wife Kamlesh Devi, and son Saurabh were kidnapped from Rohi village in Jewar in the name of treatment. Police rescued them from outside Dayanatpur village in Jewar.
The police have identified the accused as Captain Puttan Singh and his wife Sarojbala, residents of Sector 135, Noida, Pawan Chaudhary and Pramod, residents of Dayanatpur village in Jewar, and Ramadevi, a resident of Maidangarhi in Delhi.
Indian Express quoted Saad Mian Khan, Greater Noida DCP, saying, “They have been arrested for kidnapping Hansraj, his wife Kamlesh Devi, and their son Saurabh. All of them are residents of Rohi village in Jewar.”
He said that Hansraj’s family was among the six villages that were rehabilitated in the first phase of the airport. However, Hansraj, his wife, and son Saurabh refused to go to the rehabilitation site and were living in their home in Rohi for three years. On May 29, the Deputy District Magistrate of Jewar sent them to the rehabilitation site.
On the same day, Saurabh admitted his parents to Kailash Hospital in Jewar, from where they were discharged on June 4. According to DCP Khan, on June 2, the son named Sonu filed a habeas corpus petition in the Allahabad High Court against the police and administrative officials, alleging illegal detention of his father, mother, and brother. On June 9, the court accepted the petition and directed the three to be produced in the court, and the next hearing will be on July 7.
The police suspect that between May 29 and June 2, the accused had approached Saurabh and his parents and offered to take them to another place for better treatment, following which they went missing, an official said. The police had formed seven teams to search for them. During the investigation, the three were found hostage at an isolated place outside Dayanatpur village in Jewar.
The accused had hatched a kidnapping conspiracy to obstruct the rehabilitation policy of Noida International Airport, the DCP said. The police have registered a case under Section 140 (3) at the Jewar police station.
