Delhi: To settle down with girlfriend, engineer kidnaps infant

NEW DELHI: A seven-month-old boy, who had been kidnapped for a ransom of Rs 40 lakh from outer Delhi’s Mohan Garden area on Friday, was rescued within seven hours. Delhi Police has arrested the kidnapper, a computer engineer. He had demanded the ransom to settle down with his girlfriend.
A woman had earlier approached Ranhola police station after her child went missing around 12.30 pm on Friday. Shivi Kaushik, the complainant, told the cops that their 24-year-old tenant Priyanshu Kumar came to their house on the pretext of playing with the child and fled with him when she went to another room for some work.

The child’s father told police that while he was returning home, he got a call from Kumar who told him that the infant had been kidnapped and that they must pay him Rs 40 lakh if they wanted him back safe. Kumar also called and informed his own father about the kidnapping and asked him to tell the child’s parents to cooperate and arrange for the money immediately. Police then registered a case of kidnapping and started investigation.
Deputy commissioner of police (outer) Parvinder Singh said CCTV footage and local questioning about the route taken by the suspect while fleeing with the child established that he had escaped towards Uttam Nagar. “We found that for four kilometres, he walked and then booked a taxi using a mobile phone application. He took the taxi to Ghaziabad. Teams were sent to Ghaziabad to search for him. Meanwhile, information from Anand Vihar was received that a man with an infant has been spotted boarding a taxi towards Vasundhara,” he said.
“After more than four hours of chase, our team was able to intercept the taxi near Pankha Road. The kidnapped child was recovered safely. The accused then managed to escape, but he was caught from Uttam Nagar after two hours,” the DCP said.
During interrogation, Kumar told the cops that he was a BTech graduate and was currently doing apprenticeship at a company in Sahibabad, Noida. He said that he was in a relationship with a girl from Kanpur where he had studied and that he regularly needed to arrange for money to meet his girlfriend’s demands.
“He said he had no job but wanted to settle down finally with the girl and therefore, planned the kidnapping to demand a hefty ransom,” Singh said. A police team has been sent to Kanpur to find out if his girlfriend was also a part of the kidnapping plan.