Gaya: A doctor couple in Bihar's Gaya district, who were allegedly abducted for ransom two days ago, still remained untraced.
"We are on job to rescue the missing doctor couple Pankaj Gupta and Shubra Gupta," Gaya district's Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) P Kannan said. Denying extortion angle outright, he said that no ransom call has been received as yet.
Camping in Gaya to monitor the rescue operation by the district police, the IG (CID) Vinay Kumar said that a number of police teams have been set up to trace the whereabouts of the missing doctor couple. The couple might have been kidnapped and taken to Uttar Pradesh, he said. Meanwhile, the opposition BJP and former chief minister of Bihar Jitan Ram Manjhi slammed the Nitish Kumar government for the incident and alleged "extortion business" has started rearing its head in Bihar "again".
Manjhi met the missing doctor couple's kin in Gaya town and assured the traumatised family that he will speak to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to seek the Centre's intervention for safe release of the couple. Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi claimed that the extortion industry has started rearing its ugly head in Bihar to "remind one and all of the days of jungle raj."
Describing the doctor couple's alleged kidnapping as the third such incident in Bihar in a fortnight, Modi said that the medical fraternity and the traders have become a frightened lot. The doctor couple were missing from Barachatti police station area since last Friday while they were returning home in a luxury car from Jharkhand's Giridih district.
The missing doctor couple's kin Niraj Gupta, has already lodged a case at Barachatti police station claiming kidnapping of the Gupta couple by unidentified persons. Expressing concern, the Bihar chapter of Indian Medical Association (IMA) yesterday demanded safe recovery of the couple within next 72 hours and threatened to launch a state-wide agitation if the state government and police failed to do so.
