9-yr-old abducted, dropped home after three hours

A nine-year-old boy was allegedly kidnapped by four unidentified people, including a woman, as he was about to board his school bus to return home on Tuesday.

A nine-year-old boy was allegedly kidnapped by four unidentified people, including a woman, as he was about to board his school bus to return home on Tuesday.

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However, he was released three hours later, after his mother received a ransom call, the police said.

A man approached the Class 4 student of a Goregaon-based school as he was about to board the school bus, the police complaint lodged by the student’s mother states.

“The man told the student he would give him a ride home in his car,” said M. Telang, senior police inspector, Bangur Nagar police station. “The boy assumed he was a friend or a relative of his mother’s and agreed.”

The complaint says the four accused drove around Goregaon and Malad for three hours.

“One of the abductors called his mother and said they had kidnapped her son and that he would call again to inform her about the ransom amount,” a police official said, on condition of anonymity.

The nine-year-old’s mother, who has been living alone in Malvani since her divorce four years ago, called her relatives and went to the police. But even as the police were recording her complaint, a relative called on her mobile phone saying the boy had returned home.

The boy later told the police that the four accused had driven him around in a white car and fed him snacks and ice-cream.

They had then dropped him at a public telephone booth not far from his house, from where he found his way home. He did not know any of the accused, he told the police.

“Though he was kidnapped, at no point did the abductors try to harm him. We don’t think he was kidnapped for ransom,” said a police officer investigating the case.

The Bangur Nagar police have registered a case of kidnapping against the four accused.