The police have filed a chargesheet in connection with the abduction of a five-year-old boy who was snatched from a school bus on the eve of Republic Day at Shahdara in north-east Delhi this year.
The probe agency filed the 43-page (main part) chargesheet in the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ajay Garg at the Karkardooma courts earlier this month. The charges include kidnapping, attempt to murder, theft, wrongful restraint charges under the Indian Penal Code and others under the Arms Act.
The chargesheet lists 81 witnesses. Stolen mobile phones used by the accused to make ransom calls and a video of the boy saying “I love you” to his father are among the evidence mentioned in the probe report.
Shoot-out
The police had rescued the boy after an encounter with the kidnappers on February 6 at Shalimar City in Ghaziabad’s Sahibabad. Of the four accused, Ravi was killed in the encounter, while Pankaj, Nitin Sharma and Anshul Malhotra were arrested.
They had demanded a ransom of ₹60 lakh for the child’s release, said the chargesheet. Nitin had impersonated a woman while making the ransom calls to mislead the investigators, the police said.
Pankaj and Ravi had allegedly kidnapped the boy from the school bus on January 25 near the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences on Mandoli Road. They had also shot at the bus driver, the chargesheet said.
The kidnappers allegedly shot the driver to create panic in the boy’s family and to get the ransom money quickly. The plan to kidnap the son of a wholesale businessman had been hatched by Nitin, who was aware that the father had recently struck a business deal of ₹37 lakh, the police alleged.
The police are still investigating the locations from where the 20 stolen mobile phones used by the kidnappers to make ransom calls were snatched.
“Stolen mobile phones were purchased by the kidnappers and used to make ransom calls to the boy’s parents. The phones have been seized but we are yet to trace the places from where they were snatched...Ravi, who was killed during the encounter at the flat where the boy was kept, had slapped the victim when he asked the kidnappers to release him as he wanted to meet his parents. The boy was rescued from the flat during the encounter,” said a senior police officer.
