Devakumar, (12), from Sai Mandir area in Kalaburagi, got into trouble on Sunday evening, when he offered to help some strangers, who, pretending to be in a medical urgency, asked him to lead them to a nearby hospital. They told him that they were new to the city.
Devakumar and his friend, Shashikanth, were returning from music classes when they were approached for help by strangers in an autorickshaw. Shashikanth refused to entertain the accused, but Devakumar stepped into the autorickshaw and started guiding the driver towards Dhanvantari Hospital. Within minutes, he realised that he was being kidnapped.
After a while, his parents received a call from Shashikanth’s mother, who told them what had happened. The anxious parents rushed to the area where Devakumar was last seen. They spent the night and the next morning searching for him. After looking everywhere, they managed to get some details.
Lakshmi, Devakumar’s mother, was so distraught that she fainted and had to be rushed to a hospital.
Ransom demand
Rajashekhar, Devakumar’s father, then received a phone call from the kidnappers demanding a ransom of Rs. 20 lakh for the safe release of his son. He approached the police, who swung into action immediately.
Superintendent of Police N. Shashikumar convened an emergency meeting of senior officers. Eight police teams were formed. Technical teams looked for clues through the phone numbers the kidnappers had used to contact the parents. An informers’ network was activated in and around the city. The general public was involved in information gathering and tracing the location.
The kidnappers called Rajashekhar nearly 50 times from one number and around 40 times from another. They allowed Rajashekhar to speak to his son on the phone.
They initially gave the parents a three-day period to arrange the money and later reduced it to two days. Once they got know that the police were trying to track them down, they told Rajashekhar to arrange the money on the same day.
Citing the demonetisation of high value currencies, Rajashekhar told the accused that he would not be able to arrange such a huge amount in valid notes within a short period. The kidnappers agreed to accept a part of ransom in Rs. 500 or Rs. 1,000 notes. Rajashekhar managed to mobilise Rs. 2 lakh in Rs. 500 notes by Monday evening.
The kidnappers who were frequently changing their location directed Rajashekhar from one place to other, before finally leading him to sparsely-populated Kapanur Industrial Area.
On the other hand, plain-clothes sleuths, informers and selective people were active in areas that the kidnappers had been calling from. Another team was following Rajashekhar and the ransom amount.
The collective efforts yielded positive results. Ensuring the safety of the boy, the police encircled and caught the kidnappers who were later identified as Sridhar (20), Vinod (19), Vijay (19) and Trimurthy (19) at Kapanur Industrial Area at 11 p.m. on Monday. Devakumar had been injured with knives and threatened of strangulation.
In the interrogation, the accused confessed to having committed the crime so as to repay their loans of about Rs. 5 lakh.
“In order to threaten the parents, the kidnappers had claimed to have committed many murders. We, however, found no previous criminal records of the accused. Of the accused, one is a PUC student and the other three are not engaged in any particular work,” said Mr. Shashikumar at a press conference on Tuesday.
