4-year-old kidnapped boy rescued, one held

BANGALORE: The Bangalore Rural police have rescued a four-year-old boy who was kidnapped for a ransom of Rs 50 lakh.One of the accused Shekhar, a native of Venkatapura in Andhra Pradesh has been arrested while the main accused Naveen, Kumar, Loki and Swamy are absconding.According to the police, on August 21 morning, Brindan, son of Gurushankar and Geetha, residents of Doddaballapur Town, while playing in front of his house had gone missing.The next day, an 11-yearold- boy came to Gurushankar’s house and gave them a box, which had a nine-digit incomplete phone number, and a note said calling that number by adding digit 0-9 would give them information about their missing son.“When asked the boy, he said two persons gave him Rs 30 and asked him to deliver the box.Based on Gurushankar’s complaint, we formed three special teams to crack the case,” the police said.The police started gathering information about the accused based on the phone number.In the meantime, on Tuesday morning the abductors called Gurushankar from a public telephone booth in Bommanahalli and demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh for safe release of his son.“By that time, it was clear that the phone number sent in the box belonged to one, Naveen.When contacted that number, he had diverted all his calls to Gurushankar’s number.When investigated using the IMEI number of his mobile, it was learnt he was using two other SIM cards,” the police explained.After getting his call details, two of his friends, with whom he was in regular touch, were picked up.“Though they did not know about the kidnap, we tracked the movements of accused through them.However, the accused soon realised that police are tracking them and decided to abandon the kid at Gowribidanur bus stop.Gathering this information, a team of cops was waiting at the bus stop and on Wednesday at around 12 noon, accused Shekhar came along with the kid and he was nabbed,” the police said.Superintendent of Police of Bangalore rural district, Prakash, said that the kid was kept in the house of a relative of Shekhar in Nagasandra near Madhugiri“Shekhar had misled his relatives that the kid’s mother had undergone an operation and the kid would stay there for sometime.All the five accused were earlier working at a garment factory in DoddaballapurThe other four accused will be nabbed soon,” he added .