A 16-year-old boy abducted from Chitwan and taken to Kathmandu was rescued after a handwritten plea for help he tossed from a hotel room led police to his location.

The teenager had been kidnapped by a group of Indian nationals on Sunday and brought to Kathmandu in a vehicle bearing Indian registration plates. The abductors confined him to a hotel room in Nayabazar.

On Monday, after being left alone briefly in the room, the teenager wrote a message seeking help on a scrap of paper and threw it into an open field beside the hotel, according to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Santosh Khadka of the Valley Crime Investigation Office.

The note contained his name, his father’s name, his home address and a contact number.

It read: “Help, my name is ... Gupta. My father’s name is ... Gupta. I am from Narayangarh. Please call the police. My father’s number is 9845... (Kidnapped).”

According to an officer involved in the investigation, the teenager had a pen in his pocket. The kidnappers had been threatening him with a knife.

“In the afternoon, the others had gone out, leaving only one abductor in the room,” the officer said. “Pretending to go to the toilet, he wrote the message on the packaging of a newly purchased charger and threw it outside.”

A local youth later found the note and immediately informed the police.

Acting on the information, a team from the Valley Crime Investigation Office launched an urgent search operation.

“The moment we received information about the abduction of a child, we initiated an immediate operation,” SSP Khadka said. “As a result, we were able to locate and rescue the teenager from the hotel.”

During the investigation, police contacted the teenager’s father and learned that the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of Rs2.2 million.

When police raided the hotel, three suspects were inside while two others were away. According to Khadka, the remaining two returned shortly afterwards, enabling officers to arrest all five suspects.

An officer familiar with the investigation said the teenager had been beaten and threatened with death during his captivity.

Police have arrested five Indian nationals on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping. They have been identified as Sujit Kumar, Golu Kumar Soni, Bikky Kumar, Mohammad Shahid and Golu Kumar. All are 18 years old.

“The victim and one of the suspects, Sujit Kumar, studied together in grade 7 and became friends at the same school. Sujit later dropped out,” Khadka said. “Years later, he re-established contact through Instagram and invited the teenager to meet him.”

According to the investigation, the teenager was first held at a hotel in Chitwan after meeting Sujit before being transported to Kathmandu in an Indian-registered vehicle.

Police said the teenager’s family is involved in the gold jewellery manufacturing business, and preliminary findings indicate that extortion was the primary motive behind the kidnapping.