Mumbai: Cops rescue kidnapped 10-yr-old

At 3 pm, the mother came home and found only her older son. “She began to search for her younger son but could not find him anywhere. She was also unable to contact her husband as he had taken her cell phone,” said N Ambika, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone IV.

Soon after, the father received a phone call from a man who claimed he has kidnapped his son and demanded Rs 10,000 in ransom, the police said. The scared parents lodged a complaint at Antop Hill police station, telling the police that they did not have the money for ransom.

According to the police, the father received another phone call from the kidnapper, who instructed him to bring the money to Dahanu Road railway station. By this time, R D Shinde, Additional Commissioner of Police, Central region, had formed six investigating teams, one of which accompanied the father to Dahanu dressed in plainclothes.

However, after a lengthy wait there, the kidnapper did not arrive at the railway station, but instead phoned the father and instructed to meet him at several other locations. Exhausted with worry, the father collapsed and was taken by the police to a hospital and administered first aid.

“We did not want to alert the kidnapper to our presence and stayed some distance away. But the accused had made a survey of the railway station and observed us from a distance.” said Shinde.

Police teams had also been deployed to Virar railway station and Dadar railway station in case the accused decided to flee the city, added Shinde.

All this while, another police team tracked the phone number from which the ransom calls had been made to a zari making unit in Antop Hill, where inquiries revealed that an employee named Dilip Kumar (25) had left for his native village two days ago.

“We tracked his cell phone and found that he had been moving within a five kilometer radius of the Dahanu Road railway station,” said Shinde.

He added that as the investigation continued on Friday, the father received more ransom calls, with demands ranging between Rs 2,000 and Rs 10 lakh, but the accused again settling for Rs 10,000 to be delivered to him at the railway station.

On Friday, the police laid in wait for Kumar to arrive at the railway station, and had a friend of the complainant family identify the boy. Kumar was booked for kidnapping the boy.

Preliminary investigation has revealed that Kumar, who lived and worked near the boy’s home had been observing his movements for several days before making his move on Thursday.

“He gave chocolates and sweets to the boy and asked him to accompany him. The accused does not know the boy’s family personally and asked him for his father’s cell phone number,” said Ambika. She added that as the hours went by, the boy asked him to send him home to his mother, but Kumar refused. “The boy began to cry and asked to speak to his mother on the phone but the accused said that there was no battery in his phone,” she said.

Kumar, the police said, had purchased a ticket to Vapi before his arrest. “We are interrogating him,” said Shinde.