Desperate for ‘intimacy’, businesswoman ‘kidnaps’ TV anchor to marry him

How far would you go for “intimacy”? To what extent can you be obsessed with an unknown person? A 31-year-old woman in Hyderabad was obsessed enough with a man she barely knew to allegedly fit his car with a tracking device, stalk him, and eventually kidnap him — all in the pursuit of “intimacy”.

However, the one-sided and disturbing love story came to a crashing halt when the “intimacy-seeking stalker”, a businesswoman, was arrested by Hyderabad Police along with the four henchmen she allegedly hired to kidnap the man she was determined to marry.

Started with impersonation

The bizarre saga started two years ago when Bhogireddy Trishna, who runs a digital marketing business, saw the photos of 27-year-old Pranav Sistla, a TV music channel anchor, on a matrimony website. She started chatting with the account holder believing that he looked like Sistla, but later realised that he was merely using Sistla’s photo on his profile instead of his own. The impersonator was reportedly identified as Chaitanya Reddy.

Apparently, Reddy even shared Sistla’s phone number on his profile. Once she got the number, Trishna contacted Sistla through a messaging app. But he told her he was aware that someone had used his photo and created a fake account on the matrimony site. He said he had even lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime police about it. 

Desperate for attention

However, Trishna was undaunted. She allegedly continued to send him messages, after which a frustrated Sistla blocked her number, said police. Not to be put off, she hatched a plan to kidnap him, believing that eventually, in true “filmy style”, she would sort everything out, get married, and live happily ever after.

Accordingly, Trishna allegedly hired four goons to kidnap Sistla. First, she installed an Apple AirTag, which is a tracking device, on his car to watch his movements. Then, on February 11, the four hired men kidnapped the anchor and took him to Trishna’s office and beat him up badly, said the police. Fearing for his life, Sistla agreed to respond to her calls and only then was he let off.

“Desire for intimacy”

However, he soon lodged a complaint at Uppal police station, and they registered a case under sections 363 (kidnapping), 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement), and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Accordingly, Trishna and the four goons she hired were arrested. Police have been quoted as saying that she was driven by an “obsession and a desire for intimacy”.

(With agency inputs)