Yusuf was picked up by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell for helping his friend “abduct” a 30-year-old married doctor and for trying to “extort money from her family.”

His friend, Mohammad Yaseen, an engineer with IBM was arrested from Bangalore. Yusuf was picked up when he came to Delhi to inquire about his friend.

This, however, is not just any other case of abduction. The doctor, Madhumita Mishra, was working at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital in Delhi. Mishra met Mohammed Yaseen,a software engineer with IBM on Orkut, the social networking website, three months ago.

Mishra’s husband Subijay Sinha was working in Kolkata and she was staying with her brother in Noida.

Mishra and Yaseen started exchanging e-mails on spirituality and Islam. The police say they exchanged about 600 mails. Mishra left her Noida home in the last week of August and started living at Ramanujan Guest House, Saraswati Road in Karol Bagh.

On September 3, she boarded a flight to Bangalore to meet Yaseen.

On September 7, her husband Sinha registered a complaint with the Karol Bagh police claiming that she was missing. Four days later, he filed a complaint that said: “I came to know that my wife was talking to one Yaseen in Bangalore. I fear that she might be abducted by him and confined by some fundamentalist group.”

“In his complaint, the victim’s husband told us that when Yaseen was contacted for the whereabouts of Mishra, he demanded Rs 10 lakh ransom,” says Joint Commissioner, Special Cell, Karnal Singh.

An FIR of abduction and extortion was registered at the Karol Bagh police station on September 11. The same day, the Special Cell “recovered” Mishra from a madrasa in Mangalore and picked up Yaseen from the IBM office in Bangalore.

“When Yaseen did not return from work, his wife called my son Shaji for help. All the friends together investigated and found that the Special Cell had picked up Yaseen. So my son, who had never been to Delhi, came to look for his friend,” says Kunju.

Kunju agrees that his son is “very religious” but asks if it’s illegal to discuss religion.

Yusuf and Yaseen are childhood friends and were together at T K M college for Engineering in Quilon. In 1998, Yusuf left for Bangalore for a job and Yaseen followed a few years later.

Yaseen is married and has a six-month-old child. Yusuf’s wife and six-year-old son are now in their hometown, Aluva. The Special Cell arrested Yusuf on September 14.

“We have arrested Shaji Yusuf for helping Yaseen in the crime,” says Karnal Singh.

Both Yusuf and Yaseen are in judicial custody. Their bail application will now come up for hearing on Wednesday.

“I thought my son would be brought to the court. I have seen him only once since I came to Delhi. I have been told to go to Tihar Jail if I want to see him. This is my first trip to Delhi and I don’t know Hindi also. It is so tough for me to reach all these places,” says Kunju.