The Delhi Police Crime Branch has arrested 57-year-old Amit Yadav, a life convict who had been absconding for 26 years in a ₹1 crore kidnapping-for-ransom case dating back to 1995.
Yadav was arrested by the Anti-Robbery and Snatching Cell (ARSC) of the Crime Branch from Dehradun, Uttarakhand, on August 13, 2026. He had allegedly been on the run since obtaining interim bail in 2000 and failing to surrender.
The case dates back to September 1995, when businessman Rishi Sethi was allegedly kidnapped near the residence of the Director of AIIMS. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of ₹1 crore from his family.
During the investigation, ₹10 lakh in ransom money was recovered from Yadav following his arrest in Meerut in September 1995.Police subsequently rescued Sethi from a locked storeroom in Raj Nagar, Ghaziabad, where he had allegedly been chained and confined.
Yadav was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to life imprisonment, along with a fine of ₹2.5 lakh. His appeal was dismissed by the Delhi High Court in December 2000, upholding his conviction and sentence. A reward of ₹5,000 was declared for his arrest, and he was subsequently declared a Proclaimed Offender.
One of the major challenges before the Crime Branch was establishing the identity of the fugitive after more than two decades. Investigators found that no photograph of Yadav was available in the relevant police or jail records.The ARSC team traced his old biometric and fingerprint records from 1999 with the assistance of the Crime Record Office and Finger Print Bureau. The records helped investigators establish his identity and track his subsequent movements.
According to the Crime Branch, after absconding, Yadav allegedly changed his identity, shifted to Rishikesh and later Dehradun, where he started a new life. He allegedly entered the construction business and eventually became a builder.The arrest was made following sustained surveillance, intelligence development and field operations by the ARSC team, bringing to an end Yadav’s 26-year run from the law.
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