Four hours after being abducted from outside his residence in Sunder Nagri on Monday, an 18-month-old child was reunited with his family, claimed the police. One Satyaveer Yadav, who claimed he was a rickshaw puller, was arrested in connection with the incident.
Yadav later disclosed that he had kidnapped the child for ransom as he was going through a financial crunch and had recced the victim's neighbourhood for days to look for a vulnerable child, the police said.
Grandma’s complaint
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-East) A.K. Singla said the victim's grandmother had approached them with a complaint stating that at around 7 p.m. her grandson was playing in front of her house and went missing a while after. Based on her complaint, a case was registered at the Nand Nagri police station.
“Since the child was under 8 years old, we had to be extra cautious and apart from conducting our extensive search, we took additional help from social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook etc. And in the next hour or so, posters of the kidnapped child were placed on autos, cycle rickshaws, e-rickshaws and on the walls in Nand Nagri, Sunder Nagri, Harsh Vihar, Mandoli, Ashok Nagar etc,” said Mr. Singla.
Teams carrying pictures of the child scanned bus terminals, railway stations, metro stations, taxi stands, night shelters and even hotels in Delhi and adjoining NCR.
Accused in locality
However, the search ended in the child's own neighbourhod. Mr. Singla said a police team passing by noticed a young man with a child in Mitti Park ground H-Block in Sunder Nagri.
“Since our men had the picture of the boy, they questioned the man and he eventually admitted to having abducted the boy and identified himself as Satyaveer Yadav S/o Ram Chander Yadav,” said Mr. Singla.
During questioning, Satyaveer purportedly told the police that he is a rickshaw puller and was in dire need of money. He started looking for a child in the locality in order to arrange ₹50,000 by way of ransom.
Motive was ransom
“He observed many children in the area and their schedule and observed that this child used to come out to play every evening and would spend some time outside unattended. The parents of the child are not very affluent but Satyaveer figured they would arrange the money or an amount close to the quoted figure to save their child. He then visited the area again and took away the child,” said another police officer.
