Rajinder Singh, 53, along with his nephew, 23, was on his way to meet his business clients, when a group of men abducted them from the Outer Ring Road in Pitampura on Tuesday afternoon. Even as the men screamed for help, they were bundled into two cars and whisked away.

Said a baffled Singh: ``We did not know what happened. Six or seven men armed with hockey sticks, got out of their Maruti Zens and starting beating us," he said. "They did not even give us a chance to reason with them. I just kept asking them what was wrong and what I had done, but they did not pay any attention," he added.

Meanwhile, his assailants kept beating him mercilessly and when some onlookers tried to stop them, they said that Singh owed them money. Due to this, many people nearby just looked away as if nothing was happening.Both were then bundled into two cars and taken toAzadpur Sabzi Mandi. ``Mercifully, they did not do much harm to my nephew."

"They took the hockey stick to me and kept asking me for Rs 1 crore. I kept telling them that I was not from the town that they were mentioning and had no idea what they were talking about. But they kept beating me,'' he said.Rajinder's battered right eye is swollen shut. He has a broken arm and he says he has bruises all over.

Singh, a businessman from Karnal, had come to New Delhi to visit his sister two days ago. He has an agency of Derby Beer of Rajasthan Breweries and was planning to meet the owners of a few liquor vends in Delhi. Singh was on his way to one such vend when he was abducted by the miscreants.

Singh said that he was beaten with hockey sticks for two hours. ``They picked me up around 12 noon and released me after 2 pm, that too when their leader came and told them that I was not the man they were after,'' he said. Singh added that he had given the police the names of four of the accused as well as the numberof one of the cars, which was used by them, but no one had been arrested so far.

Satyendra Garg, DCP (north-west) said: ``The victim has given us the names of four of the accused. They are commission agents working at Azadpur Sabzi Mandi," he said.

"Another commission agent, who is also a Sikh, owed these agents Rs 4 crore. They probably thought he was the same man and had come to sell some land at the registration office, close to which the incident occurred,'' the DCP added.

Garg said that they had registered case of kidnapping, illegal confinement and causing hurt and were looking for the accused.