Toddler rescued after 3 months

The police on Tuesday rescued the two-year-old son of a Uttam Nagar-based businessman who was kidnapped more than three months back and arrested four people, including a woman, for the crime.

The police on Tuesday rescued the two-year-old son of a Uttam Nagar-based businessman who was kidnapped more than three months back and arrested four people, including a woman, for the crime.

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Surender Singh Solanki’s two-year-old son Pranjal was kidnapped more than three months ago from their residence in Uttam Nagar.

According to police, Narender Kumar Dabas (34), his wife Santosh (26) and two of their associates — Gaurav Kumar Khatri (27) and Amit Kumar (21) — demanded Rs 40 lakh from Pranjal’s parents and were holding him hostage at a rented house in Jahangir Puri since October 1 last year.

Dabas’ elder brother is allegedly married to Solanki’s sister. “Dabas had his eye on Rs 40 lakh that Solanki —who is a travel agent by profession— had received as his share in ancestral property,” said Alok Kumar, deputy commissioner of police, special cell.

According to police, Dabas, Khatri and Kumar went to Solanki’s Prem Nagar residence – which Dabas and Amit Kumar receed three times, around midnight on September 30, 2009; the abduction taking place between 11:30 pm to 5 am.

Police said they took the child to the rented house in Jahangir Puri. The first ransom call was made to the child’s mother the very next day.

“The first ransom call had been made from a PCO in the Pasonda district of Ghaziabad to mislead the police into thinking that a gang based in Western UP was behind the child’s abduction,” said Kumar.

“On October 14, Solanki handed over a ransom of Rs. 4 lakh to the abductors near Sanjay Gandhi Hospital, but they kept demanding Rs 40 lakh.”

After that, the abductors allegedly made numerous calls during the intervening 111 days from different locations and after differing intervals to remain untraceable.

“The calls came from PCOs located at different places in Delhi and UP, like Bhopura, Karera in Ghaziabad and Adarsh Nagar, Azadpur

Mandi, Pitampura, Janakpuri, Tilak Nagar, Jahangir Puri and other places in Delhi,” said the officer.

According to police, teams were deployed in all the areas from where the ransom calls had been made from different PCOs and Santosh and Kumar arrested soon after they made the last ransom call from a PCO from the Azadpur fruit market.