A 16-year-old girl who was allegedly kidnapped from Mahadevapura on July 14 was traced to Bagepalli in Chickballapur district on Sunday. The accused, Ravi Babu (35), is believed to be involved in two other recent cases of kidnapping in the city.
According to the police, Nischita, a resident of Udayanagar and a pre-university student in the city, was lured by Ravi alias Ravi Babu who said that he knew her parents well and would take her for a puja at a nearby place. He then allegedly took her on his motorcycle. Her parents later lodged a missing person complaint with the police after she did not return home.
According to the police, people informed the local police in Bagepalli on Sunday after they saw the girl with the middle-aged man and grew suspicious. The motorcycle of the accused broke down in Bagepalli following which he took it to a mechanic. That’s where the girl alerted some passersby that she had been kidnapped.
“We coordinated with the Bagepalli police and rescued the girl. However, the accused escaped,” said Mahadevapura police inspector K.S. Nagaraj.
He said that Ravi Babu was responsible for the kidnapping of a nine-year-old Class III student from Banaswadi who was traced to Andhra Pradesh last week and also another minor in Whitefield police station limits on July 6, who was also traced recently.
He used the same modus operandi of luring girls by introducing himself as a family friend and then would say he would take them for a puja, said the inspector. The accused, hailing from Bidarahalli, would also pretend to talk on the phone with the girls’ parents to convince them that he was well acquainted with their families.
The police said they were not sure if there were any instances of sexual assault among these cases but suspect that he had tried to physically misbehave with them. The accused also supposedly has many cases of kidnapping registered against him in City Market, Parappana Agrahara, Whitefield and Mahadevpura police station limits.
