The victim, Rajnish Dubey who worked with one of his kidnappers, was rescued from a small room in Nafargunge under the Basanti police station.

The kidnappers — Bhaskar Mondol, Prasenjit Bhowmik and Nimai Pal —were apprehended as they tried to escape.

Dubey used to work at Mondal’s recruitment agency and took a commission of Rs 5,000 per candidate.

The latter, in spite of accepting several lakhs of rupees as placement fee, had failed to provide employment.

When his clients demanded their money back, Mondal kidnapped Dubey in a bid to extract money from him, police said.

According to the complaint lodged by Dubey’s wife Rashmi at the Muchipara police station, Dubey, a resident of Bali in Howrah, was kidnapped on February 14 by three men as he was waiting for a bus near the Purabi cinema hall.

Initially, fear for her husband’s life had kept her away from approaching the police. But after nearly two weeks, when she was unable to meet the Rs 3.5 lakh ransom demand and faced threats from the kidnappers, Rashmi lodged the complaint.

The arrested have confessed to the crime and were produced in court on Monday, said Anil Jana, Muchipara’s Officer-in-charge.