A 24-year-old Snapdeal employee who went missing near Ghaziabad two days ago told police on Friday she was abducted by four men she was sharing an auto with on her way home from a local metro station.
Ghaziabad senior superintendent of police Dharmendra Singh said the men were “illiterate and local goons”, who were spooked by the 200-men-strong manhunt and massive media coverage to locate Dipti Sarna.
“She went missing around 36 hours ago and over 200 police personnel were on duty searching the area. She called her parents using a passenger’s phone after she boarded a local train from Panipat,” SSP Singh said.
Police officials have also said that Sarna has not been subjected to any physical harm and that they will interrogate her to ascertain her whereabouts at a later date.
An executive with the e-commerce major’s legal department since April, Dipti Sarna took a shared auto from the Vaishali Metro station in Ghaziabad at 7.42pm on Wednesday.
But the auto broke down halfway at Mohan Nagar, forcing the other passengers to board another auto to the old bus stand in Ghaziabad.
Police began a search for Sarna, a legal executive with the Gurgaon-based e-commerce giant. Her company too began a social media campaign to find her, with a tweet from CEO Kunal Bahl saying Snapdeal was working closely with the authorities to find their employee.
“Dipti’s friend said that something had happened to her. They were talking on the phone when he heard her scream and the call got disconnected. He asked me to look for her,” said Narendra. He was supposed to pick up Dipti from the spot he was waiting at, like he did every evening, after she returned from her office in Gurgaon.
“Everyday, she would call us twice on her way back home. Once when she reached the metro station and then again when she was near the Hindon bridge. Her father would then pick her up,” said her mother Vandana.
Dipti called her brother and informed him that she was calling from Panipat and shall be reaching Delhi railway station at about 8.30 am. She made the call from her own mobile phone, which remained switched off for the last 36 hours, during which the police and her parents were searching for her. Her parents picked her up from the Delhi railway station and took her home.
According to top Haryana Police officers, it was not yet clear whether she boarded the train from Panipat or she was already in the train (boarded from somewhere else) when she called her parents.
An FIR was filed at Sihani Gate police station under Section 364 (kidnapping in order to murder) of the IPC.
