4 kids rescued at rly station

Alert passengers and the children’s presence of mind helped them stay clear of their captor, who had kidnapped them at knife-point. Though the unidentified abductor fled the scene, the episode points to the existence of a larger and sinister child kidnap racket in the City.

Saturday’s drama began at 4 p m when four children, including three girls, were heading with their school bags to a friend’s house from their residence at Chokkasandra. The brother-sister pair of Shakeela (12) and Doul Saeb (9) were on their way to meet their friend Anita. Their neighbours Pooja (6) and Pallavi (5) also joined them.

Sharing her fear later, Shakeela said: “As we were walking, a man held us at knife-point and threatened to kill us if we did not obey his orders. He forced us to go back to our house. He asked us to empty our school bags and stuff them with clothes.” 

As the kids’ parents are construction labourers, there was nobody at home. “My college-going elder sister came in, and she left for her tuition. We did not dare to speak as the man was pointing the knife at us.”

The four were then taken to the City railway station from Chakkasandra. Trains bound for
Mysore and Tumkur were scheduled to depart from platform No 10. 

Now, Shakeela and her friends decided to break away. They said they wanted to go to toilet. The kidnapper permitted them to go to the bathrooms on the platform.

Once the children came out from the toilet, they ran along the platform. The man pursued them. Meanwhile, alert relatives of passengers stopped the children. Sensing trouble, the kidnapper jumped to another platform and fled the scene.