Thane: 9-year-old kidnapped for Rs 40 lakh ransom rescued

KALYAN: A 9-year-old Ambernath boy kidnapped on Thursday was reunited with his family on Saturday after the Thane police crime branch nabbed four accused who had demanded a ransom of Rs 40 lakh from the child’s father, who runs a vada pav stall.
The parents had filed a complaint at Shivaji Nagar police station after the boy did not return home from a tuition class he attended in his building complex.Even as police began probing the case, the boy’s uncle received a VoIP call on Friday evening from an unknown person demanding the ransom.
Meanwhile, the crime branch team scanned the CCTV footage of the building, in which they spotted four men moving around suspiciously 3-4 three to four days before the kidnapping. The boy’s father identified the men as employees of a sweet shop in the area and said he has known them for 15 years.
On Saturday afternoon, police raided the residence of one of the kidnappers, Amjad Khan, in Ambernath and rescued the child. After learning that two of the other accused were trying to flee towards Igatpuri, police alerted their Thane rural and Nashik counterparts and managed to nab them.
The other kidnappers have been identified as Chotu Singh, Yogendra Singh and Sunil Lad, aged between 30 and 40. Lad was the last to be nabbed.
Ashok Morale, additional commissioner of police (crime), who led the probe, said, “Our teams, along with the city police, have successfully nabbed the kidnappers. So far, the probe has revealed the child was kidnapped for ransom.”
Laxmikant Patil, deputy commissioner of crime branch, Thane, said the accused were not educated, but had learnt to make VoIP calls on social media due to which police faced difficulty in tracing the call locations. He further said the probe had revealed the kidnappers had moved the child to three of their homes to avoid getting caught. But when Chotu and Yogendra learned of Khan’s arrest, they began to flee towards their hometown in Uttar Pradesh.
His child back home, the father told TOI, “I am very happy that the police safely rescued my child. I never thought the accused would commit such a heinous crime for money.”