During questioning, the accused confessed and told the police that he didn’t have a stable job. He said he had been living with the child’s family for two months and thought he would get ransom for the baby. A seven-month-old boy, who was kidnapped on Friday morning by his family’s tenant for a ransom of Rs 40 lakh, was rescued by the Delhi Police within seven hours of the crime.
Police arrested the accused, Priyanshu (24), late Friday. A B.Tech graduate, Priyanshu wanted to settle down with his girlfriend in Kanpur but didn’t have the money, police said.
Parvinder Singh, DCP (Outer), said they received a call from the boy’s family, who stay in Ranhola, on Friday morning. “An investigating officer reached the spot and met a woman named Shivi, who told the police that her child had been kidnapped. She said Priyanshu came to her around 11.30 am and said he wanted to take the child out. Shivi asked him to wait since the child was sleeping. After an hour, he took the child but never returned,” said DCP Singh.
The child’s father, Siddhartha Kaushik, who works as a pharmacist in Okhla, then came back home and looked for the baby. He eventually received a call from Priyanshu demanding money.
“We found that Priyanshu called Siddhartha and sent him messages on WhatsApp. He was asking for Rs 40 lakh. After some time, he also called his own father and told him about the kidnapping. He told his parents to talk to Kaushik and get the money,” said DCP Singh.
Several teams were formed under Additional DCO Sudhanshu Dhama to rescue the baby.
The police first traced the route taken by the accused and found CCTV footage where he was seen carrying the child towards Uttam Nagar terminal. Police said he walked 4 km to reach there and then booked a taxi online for Ghaziabad.
Police sent teams to Ghaziabad and Uttam Nagar to find him, and found that he had taken another cab from Vasundhara.
“We wanted to make sure that the kidnapper wasn’t aware of the chase. So, we asked the family to send some amount to the kidnapper and talk to him,” said the police.
Teams were following the accused in Uttam Nagar, Anand Vihar, Shahjahan Road, Aerocity and Mehram Nagar, but he kept taking cabs and changing locations.
Additional DCP Dhama’s team then learnt that the accused was in a taxi heading towards Lajwanti Chowk. Around 6 pm, the police team intercepted the taxi at a traffic signal. The baby was safely rescued from the car but the accused managed to escape. The police chased him and, after several raids, arrested him from Uttam Nagar on Friday night.
During questioning, he confessed and told the police that he didn’t have a stable job. He said he had been living with the child’s family for two months and thought he would get ransom for the baby.
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