Cops rescue 9-year-old girl within hours of abduction

Nagpur: A four-hour rescue operation by Jalalkheda police in Nagpur rural helped a nine-year-old girl get reunited with her family after she was kidnapped from her home at Rohna village, around 80 km from city, on Tuesday.
Despite a six-hour delay in reporting the incident, police managed to trace the victim before any harm could be done to her and nab the culprit.Superintendent of police, Nagpur rural, Anant Rokdey announced a reward of Rs 10,000 for the Jalalkheda police for their smart work. Dhone was intercepted, along with the girl, from a Nagpur bound ST bus by rural police who were aided by city’s Gittikhadan police and traffic west wing under senior PI Narendra Hivare in the operation.
Khushi Meshram, a student of Std III, was lured by 22-year-old Siddharth Dhone to go along with him for plucking mangoes. Dhone had come to the village as a guest at a kin’s place. He had befriended Khushi a few days back. Pretending to be playing with her, Dhone had sneaked away with the girl. It is learnt Dhone did not have any fixed whereabouts or address. He generally visited his relatives once in a year and stayed for a few days. Sources claimed Dhone had also gone to Paradsingha to meet a relative but had been forced to leave the village after having teased a woman there.
Khushi and his younger sister Kashish (7) had just returned from school when the elder one was kidnapped. The sisters are being brought up by their mother who does menial jobs after their father died some time back. Khushi is learnt to be more reticent of the two. The sisters, whose mother Pratibha had gone to bank for some work, were at home along with their grandmother and another woman when Dhone visited them.
When Pratibha returned from bank she was alarmed to hear from Kashish and others in the family that Khushi had not returned for long after having left with the neighbour’s guest. They approached the police.
While rural police and their city counterparts played key role, the alleged indifferent attitude of Laxminarayan Rathod, conductor of Nagpur bound ST bus coming from Warud in Amravati via Katol is now under scanner. Rathod apparently failed to react in an alert manner despite seeing sobbing small girl in the bus in company of the youth.
Assistant PI Dinesh Labde, in-charge of Jalalkheda police station, said Dhone took an unusual path through desolate farms behind the home of Meshram family rather than the roads to flee with the girl. “He had hired an autorickshaw from Rohna to reach Katol from where he took the bus for Nagpur after consuming liquor,” said Labde. He said Khushi was kidnapped at noon but family approached police only in the evening.
Cops launched searches in the nearby villages by forming two separate squads under API Labde and PSI Vijay Korde. Local villagers and police ‘mitras’ (wardens) were also involved. “We have now summoned ST conductor and driver to ask them how they never saw anything suspicious about a girl sobbing relentlessly. They were expected to be more alert,” said Labde.
HOW WAS DHONE TRACED
The Jalalkheda police team and local residents launched searches at different farms, fields, wells, nullahs, shrubs and adjoining jungles fearing the worst. The first clue came from a villager who had spotted Dhone and Khushi in an auto-rickshaw heading towards Katol. A second clue came when someone told police he had seen a drunk man travelling in a bus with a small girl. The man had also picked up a quarrel with someone that brought him to notice of others at the bus stand.
API Labde immediately started following the bus. He also tried to get contact numbers of the bus driver and conductor from Nagpur depot but no one had them. A roadblock was also set up at Kalmeshwar but the bus had already passed it. Finally, city police ensured the bus was stopped at Katol naka and Khushi was rescued.