Businessman Suresh Kedia, who was abducted from Bara on Thursday evening, was released safely at Motihari in the Indian state of Bihar on Sunday.

A joint team of Nepali and Indian police personnel had rescued Kedia. The police detained a suspected abductor named Ranjan Jha, an Indian national, while two others managed to flee.

Indian police handed over Kedia to his family in the bordering Indian town of Raxaul on Sunday evening.

During a press meet, Kedia said the abductors kept him blindfolded all the time. He said he did not get to eat anything for three days, adding that he had fallen unconscious after he was given a drink.

“Nepal Police have helped us time and again to arrest Indian criminals taking shelter in Nepal. It’s now our turn to help them,” SP Jitendra Rana of Motihari told reporters in Raxaul.

According to officials involved in the rescue, the vehicle used to abduct Kedia was abandoned at Chatiwani of Motihari. Police had spotted Kedia at a few minutes’ walk from the highway.

“His hands were tied with rope,” said DIG Nawaraj Silwal, chief of the NP’s Central Investigation Bureau. An armed group, who came in an India-registered vehicle, had abducted the 56-year-old from Baghaban along the Kalaiya-Mahagadhi road in Bara. He was on his way to Birgunj from Kalaiya in his car. The abductors had shot at his driver before taking him under control.

Sources said the accomplices of Babbu Dubey, a notorious gangster in Bihar, were involved in the crime. A team led by Sarbendra Khanal had arrested Dubey from Sitapaila in Kathmandu three years ago. He was later handed over to the Indian police.

Dubey is serving a jail term in Motihari. Police officials suspect Dubey to have been directing his criminal gang from behind the bars.