Aspiring singer held for kidnapping boy in Punjab

To fund his Bollywood dreams, a 25-year-old aspiring singer had kidnapped the 11-year-old Kurali boy who was later recovered from the Ambala bus stand on Sunday.

The Mohali police disclosed this while producing the accused Sahil Verma, who belongs to Sonepat in Haryana, before media on Tuesday. He was arrested from Kurali.

Sahil had lured the child with an ice cream on Saturday and even demanded ₹2-lakh ransom from his family. However, he had developed a cold feet later and left the kid in Ambala.

“A graduate from the government college in Gohana, Sahil aspired to be a singer and make a career in Bollywood, for which he wanted to move to Mumbai. To raise the money, he kidnapped the boy,” said Harcharan Singh Bhullar, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Mohali.

Sahil had come to Chandigarh in 2016 to shoot for a song and became friends with Parminder Singh, alias Sonu, who shot music videos. “He stayed with him for a few days and later took a room on rent at an industrial unit in Paprali, Morinda.

Ransom call helped police trace him

Police got the first lead from the ransom call made to the boy’s mother, who is a teacher, on Sunday. The boy’s father was a scrap dealer and had died in 2013.

The call was traced to Ludhiana from where police recovered a white Maruti car parked outside a hotel. Sahil had stayed there with the child after the kidnapping.

“The second-hand car was bought for ₹14,000, 15 days before the kidnapping. As Sahil did not have an Adhaar card, the car was bought in the name of his friend Parminder,” said the SSP.

Police then traced Parminder and with his help nabbed the accused.

After making the ransom call, Sahil had destroyed the SIM card. Abandoning the car outside the hotel, he had used a three-wheeler to travel to Samrala Chowk in Ludhiana and then boarded a bus to Ambala.

On reaching there, he left the child at the bus stand, from where he was recovered.

Used junk food to befriend victim

The SSP said Sahil used to go to the Kurali stadium daily. “On March 31 and April 2, he had treated the boy and his two friends to burgers outside the stadium in order to befriend the 11-year-old,” he said.

On the day of kidnapping, Sahil had gone to the vegetable market in Kurali in his car, where he met the victim and his friends.

“He them took them to a dairy opposite Chaudhary Hospital and treated them to ice cream, after which he took away the boy for a drive,” said Bhullar. The crime was also captured in the CCTV footage of the dairy.

A case under Section 363 (kidnapping from lawful guardianship) of the Indian Penal Code was registered.

First Published: Apr 09, 2019 22:34 IST