A 22-year-old house help has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping a seven-year-old boy from Shahdara’s Gandhi Nagar for a ransom of ₹1.10 crore, the police said on Wednesday.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Eastern Range) Sagar Preet Hooda said that the accused has been identified as Monu from Uttar Pradesh. He was arrested with the help of technical surveillance, the police said.
DCP (Shahdara) R. Sathiyasundaram said that they received a PCR call at 4 p.m. on Tuesday from the boy’s father, who said that the minor had been kidnapped by their help who they had hired about a week ago to look after the child. The father said that Monu had gained the boy’s trust and on Tuesday evening, he took the child on the pretext of buying him some edibles and didn’t return for an hour.
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“Our other house help said that Monu had taken his phone and when we called, the number was switched off. When we tried again, it was on and he picked up and said that he was bringing him in half an hour. But when we called again after half an hour, he said that he would only return the child after we gave him ₹1.10 crore,” the father, who runs a mineral water plant, said.
The police registered a case and began investigation.
“The phone was put on technical surveillance while the family negotiated that they could not pay more than ₹10 lakh but he refused to reduce the ransom amount and switched off the phone,” Mr. Sathiyasundaram said.
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The family, along with police officials, then roamed the area where the phone location was traced and finally, the boy and the accused were spotted near Gokulpuri metro station. The boy was rescued and the accused was arrested.
On interrogation, the police said, Monu disclosed that he was planing to buy a flat in Mumbai using the ransom money.
The boy’s family said that Monu had gained the child’s trust in a week so much so that when the police were arresting him, he asked them not to do so, as Monu was his uncle.