Caught on camera: Kidnapper traced to Bulandshahr, 3-year-old boy rescued

GREATER NOIDA: Police on Sunday rescued a three-year-old boy, kidnapped from the Beta 2 area a day earlier, from Bulandshahr.
The accused, Pramod Singh (34), hailing from Bulandshahr and a tailor working near Jagat Farm in Greater Noida, allegedly lured the boy with chocolates as he waited for his mother to return from a medicine shop.
Anil Kumar, station house officer of Beta-2 police station, said that the mother, Aarti Kumari (27), was visiting her parents in the Gamma 2 area with the boy, Vansh, from Rajasthan for Raksha Bandhan celebrations.
“On Saturday at 8pm, she left her son with the security guard at the gate (of Gamma 2) and went to a medicine shop. While the security guard was doing some work, Singh abducted the child by offering him chocolates. When Aarti returned, she could not find her son. She alerted others and started a search operation but failed to find him,” the SHO said. At 10pm, the family approached the police.
“During the investigation, we found CCTV footage showing a man with the child. We identified him as Singh. Later, we contacted the owner of the shop where Singh used to work. The owner gave his details, along with his address in Khurja, Bulandshahr. The owner added that the accused had been drinking continuously for the past five days,” said the SHO. Singh’s phone was also switched off. A police team reached his house in Bulandshahr on Sunday at around 4am. They found the child locked in a room.
During interrogation, the accused told police that he planned to demand Rs two lakh for the child, and if the family didn’t pay him, he planned to sell the child.
Police said the accused hadn’t been to his hometown for 12 years but went there to make the ransom call. “The accused also gave some sedatives to the child. When police rescued the child, he was unconscious. The family took the child for medical care, and we are waiting for the reports,” the SHO said. Police have booked the accused under IPC sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping) and 364A (kidnapping for ransom) and sent him to judicial custody.