An extensive probe was launched by Pune police, involving teams from Bibwewadi police station. A five-year-old boy, who was kidnapped from Bibwewadi area on Wednesday night, was rescued by Pune City Police within three hours of the incident following an extensive search operation. Police have arrested a 27-year-old man, who is suspected to have abducted the boy as a fallout of a dispute with the boy’s mother.
On Wednesday night, the Pune City Police received information that a five-year-old boy had been kidnapped by two persons on bike from the premises of a chawl in Upper Indiranagar area in Bibwewadi around 7.45 pm. The boy’s 30-year-old mother was at work at the time of the kidnapping and she had left her son at her brother’s house, as she does usually. Investigation revealed that the suspect had lured the boy with a chocolate and kidnapped him.
An extensive probe was launched by Pune police, involving teams from Bibwewadi police station, several neighbouring police stations and also the Crime Branch. Within the first hour of the probe, police got to know that the boy’s mother had received a threat call from a person identified as Swapnil Shinde (27), with whom she had had a dispute in the past.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 5) Namrata Patil said, “We deployed multiple teams for the probe. Some teams started looking into CCTV camera footage in the area while another started working on phone numbers used by the suspect. The suspect had switched off his phone. Meanwhile, more teams launched a search in Bibwewadi, Swargate and Marketyard areas. Family members of Shinde were also questioned.”
Working on leads from electronic analysis and on-ground inputs, a team zeroed in on a rickshaw parked in a secluded place near Kakde Vasti. The team found the boy with the suspect in the rickshaw. He was rescued and reunited with his mother. Initial examination suggested the child was in good health. The operation took around three hours, said police officials.
DCP Patil said, “The boy’s mother is a single mother and works at a mall in the afternoon-to-night shift. She leaves her son with her brother during this period. The boy was kidnapped when he was playing in front of the house. The probe suggests that the suspect had been watching the boy for a while. Because of his past dispute with the mother, he decided to kidnap the boy out of the grudge he had been nursing against her. The suspect took a friend along to kidnap the boy, using the friend’s bike. Our probe suggests that the friend was not aware of the suspect’s intention of abduction till the last moment and even tried to persuade him not to do it. We have not arrested the friend after ruling out his involvement in the crime, but we are in contact with him.”
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