Hyderabad, Nov 4 : Hyderabad police have arrested a woman and nine others for kidnapping her husband for ransom.

Police said on Tuesday that M. Madhavi Latha, 55, is the prime accused in the case. She hired another accused to abduct her husband, Mantri Shyam, after he sold ancestral property worth Rs 20 crore.

Shyam was kidnapped in the Amberpet area on October 29. He escaped from his captors on October 31, even as the police were on the hunt for the kidnappers. On the statement of the

The victim, the police registered a case and arrested the accused.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (East Zone) B. Bala Swamy, four more suspects are absconding.

Police said Madhavi had hired men for the abduction by promising them Rs 1 crore. Shyam and Madhavi had been living separately for three years.

The police official said after receiving a missing persons complaint, police had formed special teams to trace Shyam, collected technical evidence and launched an intensive investigation.

According to police, the kidnappers moved him in several vehicles to Vijayawada on October 30 and demanded Rs. 10 lakhs for his release. The next day, they brought him back to Hyderabad to withdraw the ransom from a bank at Banjara Hills, but the victim escaped before the ransom was collected.

The police investigation revealed that while the main accused wanted to grab the properties of the victim by taking his signature and to eliminate him, the motive of the other accused was to collect ransom from the victim.

Latha had hired Durga Vinay and others to spy on him and later to abduct him for ransom. Durga Vinay, with the help of Durga Prasad and 10 others, kidnapped the victim on October 29 from DD Colony under the limits of the Amberpet police station.

According to the police, three key accused planned the kidnapping. Durga Prasad arranged henchmen, conducted a recce at DD Colony, took a flat on rent that was adjacent to the victim's house, watched every movement of the victim and on October 29 executed their Kidnap plan. They, however, failed to get ransom as the victim escaped from their clutches.

/IANS