Punjab: Abducted Hoshiarpur kid rescued from Bengal, tutor held
The 51-year-old teacher took the 13-year-old boy to Shimla with his parents consent but went unreachable and later caught in Darjeeling, motive behind abduction unclear, say police
A 13-year-old boy, who was allegedly abducted by his tutor in Hoshiarpur over a month ago, has been rescued and the kidnapper arrested from Darjeeling in West Bengal (WB), police officials said on Sunday. Model Town station house officer (SHO), sub-inspector Gursahib Singh, said the boy, a native of Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra, had been residing with his parents in a rented accommodation in Hoshiarpur.
Studying in Class 7, the boy used to take tuition from Bhupinder Singh (51), a resident of Dashmesh Nagar, daily between 3 pm and 7.30 pm. According to the police, Bhupinder somehow convinced the boy’s parents to allow him to take the child to Shimla for two days. However, after taking the boy with him on March 12, he blocked all contact numbers of the family and prevented the child from speaking to anyone.
The boy’s parents searched for him on their own for around 18 days, but when they failed to trace the abductor and their child, they got an FIR registered at the Model Town police station on April 2. A hunt was launched for Bhupinder, who kept changing his location frequently to evade arrest. Eventually, police located him at a hotel in West Bengal’s Darjeeling and arrested him two days ago.
The police said the accused had taken the boy close to the Nepal border and there was a strong possibility that he could have crossed over into Nepal with the child. The rescued boy has been produced before the Child Welfare Committee, while the accused was presented before a court, which remanded him in four-day police custody for further interrogation.
The police are investigating the motive behind the kidnapping.