‘I wanted to help get a family together’
“All I wanted to do was to help get a family together. What could I have possibly gained from the entire episode?" asked a distraught Vitthal Shinde, seated in the Powai police station on Thursday afternoon.
“All I wanted to do was to help get a family together. What could I have possibly gained from the entire episode?" asked a distraught Vitthal Shinde, seated in the Powai police station on Thursday afternoon.
He is the watchman in the building where Jyoshna Kadam worked. Four men kidnapped Kadam from near her Saki Vihar workplace on Tuesday evening.
“Last Wednesday, a stranger approached me, asking if some Jyoshna Kadam worked there. Initially I was skeptical, but when he said he was a family member, I told him that she did work in one of the offices in the building,” Shinde told the Hindustan Times.
“When I asked him, if I should call her, he refused. He told me that he was her stepbrother and his family did not want to disturb her life. He said his family had not met her since her marriage and said that his mother was worried about Kadam’s well being and wanted to just see her once. We exchanged numbers and he told he would contact me soon. The man seemed genuine,” Shinde added.
The watchman mentioned about the encounter to Kadam, who, he claimed, did not react.
“I soon forgot about the incident. On Tuesday evening, he called me and told that his mother was accompanying him to the office building. He said they just wanted to see Kadam and asked me to inform him when she would leave the building, which I did,” the watchman said.
“I thought I had done something good for the family, but was shocked when I heard that she had been kidnapped.”