2 girls rescued from Maharastra, man held for kidnapping, grooming

The girls’ parents did not report the matter to the police for two months due to fear of social stigma, police said.

The Delhi Police have arrested a 23-year-old man who “groomed” two sisters aged 12 and 14 years, and then convinced them to run away from their home in northwest Delhi and meet him in Jalgaon district in Maharashtra, officers aware of the case have said.

The local police investigated the case, but they failed to make any headway. (File Photo)

Officers said the girls are currently undergoing counselling sessions, while investigators are combing through their telephonic conversations with the accused — running into thousands of minutes — to make concrete the case against the 23-year-old.

Police have withheld the name of the accused as he and the girls are from different religions, and officers fear that revealing his identity led to communal tension.

Giving details of the case, police said the 23-year-old had worked at a factory in Vijay Vihar, northwest Delhi for around three months in 2024, and befriended the two sisters who lived nearby. Though the man moved back to Nimbhora town in Jalgaon, he kept in touch with the girls, officers said.

The girls went missing on October 16, 2024. Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Vikram Singh said the girls’ parents did not report the matter to the police for two months due to fear of social stigma, and it was only on December 14 that a missing person’s case was registered at the KN Katju Marg police station.

The local police investigated the case, but they failed to make any headway.

The anti-human trafficking unit (AHTU) of the Delhi Police crime branch conducted a parallel investigation, and learnt that a factory worker befriended the sisters. “We analysed phone call details and discovered frequent calls on a particular mobile number, mostly during the odd hours of night. The duration of the calls was thousands of minutes. We established the ownership of the mobile number and located the factory where the suspect worked for nearly three months. Our probe hit a roadblock when we found that the suspect’s police verification was not done by the factory owner and not much information was available about him,” the DCP said.

AHTU officers then began scanning the videos that the suspect was uploading on social media, and zeroed in on Nimbhora. A police team led by inspector Virender Kumar then visited the town, and managed to rescue the sisters on January 2, and also arrested the 23-year-old.

“The two sisters were terrified and not opening up about the entire matter when we rescued them last week. Currently, they are undergoing counselling sessions that would help her overcome the fear and pressure. We just want to know if they were kidnapped by the man as part of any conspiracy,” a senior officer said, on condition of anonymity.

Officers said that Kumar’s team also rescued another girl — a 16-year-old who went missing from her Samaypur Badli home in northwest Delhi on August 31, 2024 — from Nashik, and arrested a 22-year-old man who she had eloped with.

Police have also withheld the 22-year-old’s name, stating that his family in Bihar knows the 16-year-old’s family.