Man held for abducting landlord’s son, seeking ₹40 lakh ransom

After a combing operation that lasted for nearly 13 hours-- in which 80 police personnel searched in the 50km radius between Ghaziabad and parts of outer and west Delhi, the child was rescued from a taxi and the suspect arrested, said police on Saturday.

A 24-year-old man without a job kidnapped his landlord’s seven-month-old son from outer Delhi’s Mohan Garden on Friday afternoon and demanded ₹40 lakh ransom for his safe release, said police.

Ranhola police received information about the kidnapping around 2pm on Friday. The police met the child’s parents who said Kumar had kidnapped their son. (HT Archives. Representative image)

After a combing operation that lasted for nearly 13 hours-- in which 80 police personnel searched in the 50km radius between Ghaziabad and parts of outer and west Delhi, the child was rescued from a taxi and the suspect arrested, said police on Saturday.

Priyanshu Kumar, who completed his engineering from a private institute in Kanpur, was doing apprenticeship in a company in Sahibabad in Uttar Pradesh. He, along with his father (a government employee), moved into a flat owned by the boy’s family in Mohan Garden near Ranhola two months ago, said deputy commissioner of police (outer) Parvinder Singh.

“Kumar claimed to be in a relationship with a woman from Kanpur and regularly needed money to fulfil her demands. He had decided to settle down with the woman but was jobless and had no money. So, he kidnapped his landlord’s baby and demanded ₹40 lakh with the hope that the money would enable him to settle down with his girlfriend somewhere away from Delhi,” said Singh adding the police will question the woman to corroborate Kumar’s disclosures.

Ranhola police received information about the kidnapping around 2pm on Friday. The police met the child’s parents who said Kumar had kidnapped their son.

The boy’s father told police that around 11.30am on Friday, Kumar came to their flat to play with the baby. As the boy was sleeping, Kumar stayed back and waited for him to wake up. The child’s mother was busy arranging clothes in another room, when Kumar left the house with the boy without her permission. The woman panicked and informed her husband when she could not find her son or Kumar for nearly an hour, said police.

“The child’s father was rushing home from office when he received a call from Kumar, who threatened to harm the child if ₹40 lakh was not deposited in his bank account or the family informed police about the abduction. Kumar also called his father, told him about the kidnapping and asked him to tell the boy’s parents to cooperate and pay the sum,” said the DCP.

Five teams were formed who scanned CCTV footages and found that Kumar had walked for nearly 4kms up to Uttam Nagar bus terminal, from where he booked a cab through a mobile application that dropped him to Ghaziabad.

Two teams reached Ghaziabad and carried out searches in areas around Sahibabad and Anand Vihar suspecting that he may have boarded a train or bus to flee. After questioning many people, the police learnt that Kumar had boarded another taxi that was not booked via a mobile application.

“Since Kumar was making WhatsApp calls to seek updates about the money transfer, ₹40,000 was deposited in his account to make him believe that his demands were being fulfilled. It also helped us trace his location around Delhi airport. All our team members started searching vehicles around the airport and its adjacent areas,” said additional DCP Dhama.

Around 7.30pm, a police team spotted Kumar with the child in a taxi and started chasing it. Anticipating trouble, Kumar abandoned the child in the taxi near Lajwanti Chowk in west Delhi and fled while the police team was about 50m away. “We quickly took the child and the driver in our custody,” said Dhama.

For the next seven hours, the police searched many shops and buildings in areas around Lajwanti Chowk to look for Kumar, who was finally nabbed from Pankha Road near Uttam Nagar teminal, said police.