City Police on Tuesday arrested a hotel employee in Flower Market area, Selvam (32), hailing from Dindigul, on charges of kidnapping six-year-old Karthikeyani from Koilmedu in Velandipalayam area on Monday.
Karthikeyani, daughter of Anand, went missing when she was about to return from school. Her mother, who went to the school to pick up the child, found her missing late on Monday evening.
After a thorough search, they preferred a complaint with Sai Baba Colony police.
City Police alerted their counterparts in the neighbouring districts as well as across the State border.
Olavakode police in Palakkad District of Kerala, on seeing the girl crying, intercepted the man accompanying the child and questioned him. The girl rightly identified her name, parent’s name and house address.
Kerala police alerted the Coimbatore City Police and a team from here rushed to Palakkad and rescued the girl and picked up a person who was identified as Selvam.
Preliminary interrogation of Selvam was on to ascertain whether he had earlier kidnapped girl children and sold them to some agents in Kerala.
Now, the probe is on to ascertain, whether these kidnapped children were sent to Gulf countries to work as servant maids for non-resident Indians or maimed and pushed into alms-seeking.
The theory of grown-up children being pushed into flesh trade was also being examined. Interrogations are now on to ascertain the members of the gang.
A manhunt has been launched for Subramanian (35) who was suspected to be a partner in the crime and also for a woman in Palakkad in Kerala who had reportedly acted as an agent in sourcing girls from the gangs and supplying them to the other gang in the network.
A case of kidnapping under Section 363 of Indian Penal Code has been registered against Selvam.
