Police rescue abducted 11-yr-old boy from Jigani farm in midnight operation

Gourav Singh. Credit: Special Arrangement

Banaswadi sub-division police swung into action and rescued a 11-year-old boy who was abducted for a ransom of Rs 50 lakh and arrested one of the abductors, identified as Gourav Singh, 50 from Nepal.

The boy was rescued within four hours of the incident being reported to the police. Subhash is a driver with BMTC. The boy was held captive at JR Farms near Jigani.

The rescued boy was identified as Dhammadeep, son of Subhash and Ashwini couple residing in Horamavu in East Bengaluru. Dhammadeep is a class 5 student of a government school.

The boy was playing in front of his house around 5.30 pm on Tuesday - when a woman approached him and took him along with her by luring him on the pretext of taking him to a swimming pool. "But she hired an autorickshaw and took the boy to JR Farms near Jigani and handed him over to her brother-in-law", said Dr Bheemashankar S Guled, DCP (East).

The boy's parents learnt about his kidnapping only around 8.30 pm when a person called up his mother. The caller informed her that he had kidnapped her son and demanded Rs 50 lakh as ransom. He also warned the mother that he would harm her son if she complained to the police, Guled added.

Rescued at midnight

Ashwini informed her husband Subhash about the call and the couple approached Hennur police around 9.30 pm. Guled formed two teams headed by ACP (Banasawadi sub-division) NB Sakri.

A team started analysing CCTV cameras in the area, while another team traced the location of the caller to a farm house in Jigani. Sakri, sub-inspector H Ningaraj and others headed to the location of the caller. The police also collected call details of the caller and managed to trace a Nepal national who knew him.

The police got the Nepal national to call the abductor but he didn't respond to the calls. The police took the Nepal national to the farm around 12.45 am and tried to enter it, but nobody opened the gate. The police suspected the boy was under huge risk. So, Sakri and Ningaraj scaled the 10-feet high compound wall of the farm house. They searched for the boy and traced Dhammadeep in the security guard's (Singh) room where a drunk guard was asleep. His wife was also sleeping, along with her two children, in the same room. The boy was found sitting, cowering in fear. He was rescued around 1.45 am.

DCP (East) Guled appealed to the public and school teachers to create awareness among children to not to go with any strangers under any circumstances.