Begusarai priest held for kidnapping minor boy

BEGUSARAI: Police on Friday arrested the priest of a Begusarai temple on charges of kidnapping a minor boy. The accused, Chhotku Yadav alias Shyam Baba, had kept the minor boy in his captivity for about a fortnight at a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Shravasti district. A special police team from Begusarai raided the accused’s hideout on Friday and rescued the minor boy.
Begusarai DSP (headquarters) Nisith Priya on Saturday said the boy had gone missing from his village on December 5.“As family members failed to trace him, a kidnapping case was lodged with the Naokothi police station in Begusarai,” Priya said, adding Begusarai SP Awakash Kumar later constituted a special raid team under Bakhri SDPO Chandan Kumar to solve the case.
“Electronic surveillance helped police get the location of the priest and the boy was finally rescued. The boy’s father used to run a tea stall near the temple in the village. Chhotku had picked up a fight with the boy’s father recently. He kidnapped the boy to teach his father a lesson. Chhotku is a native of Shravasti. He had married a Begusarai girl. However, his wife and in-laws had deserted him two years back. Since then, he had been living in the village alone and working as priest in a local temple,” the DSP said.