The 12-year-old son of an industrialist in Maharashtra who was kidnapped for a ransom of Rs 2 crore was successfully rescued from neighbouring Gujarat and reunited with his parents, police said on Sunday.
The police have arrested five persons, including three women, in connection with the abduction that took place on November 9 in Dombivili town of Thane district, an official said.
On the morning of November 9, the accused kidnapped the boy who was on his way for tuition classes.
The boy’s father later received a call on his mobile phone and was informed that he would have to pay a ransom of Rs 1 crore for his son’s safe return, additional commissioner of police Dattatreya Shinde said. While the police were subsequently informed, the family received another phone call and the caller demanded Rs 2 crore within three hours, he said.
More than 300 policemen were enlisted to look for the child.
The police teams worked on various inputs, he said. Teams were dispatched to Jawhar, Nashik, Palghar etc to look for the boy and the accused, the official said.
At one time, when the police came to know that the accused were present in a jungle, and the police team offered Rs 50,000 to villagers for tracing the accused, he said.
The police received a tip-off that one of the accused who was a resident of Palghar had shifted to Surat in neighbouring Gujarat and moved his belongings in a tempo, the official said.
The police traced the tempo driver who had transported the goods to Surat and finally on November 11, tracked down the accused in the city along with the child, he said.
The boy was rescued safely and handed over to his parents, the official said. According to the police, the main accused has cases of double murder, house breaking and prohibition offences to his name. The main accused has been looking for potential targets since the last two years, deputy commissioner of police Kalyan Sachin Gunjal said.
