21 November,2023 04:41 PM IST | Mumbai | Asif Rizvi
The suspects in police custody on Tuesday. Pic/Police sources
The Wadala Police in Mumbai on Tuesday said that it solved a case of kidnapping of a 3-year-old boy, hours after a child was reported to be missing from his neighbourhood in Sewri.
The police said that it arrested three people including an 18-year-old woman in connection with the crime. The woman was allegedly involved in picking up the boy from her neighbourhood.
According to the police, the incident was reported on November 19, when the 27-year-old mother of the child and the complainant in the case reported to the police that her son had been missing. The police began to investigate the matter, meanwhile, the complainant too began asking people from her area if they had seen the child anywhere in the vicinity.
The mother of the child while enquiring found that an 18-year-old woman from her neighbourhood was last seen with the child. She managed to get her phone number and called her up. But when she asked about the whereabouts of the 3-year-old boy, she got a negative reply, the police said.
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"The police formed two teams to investigate the matter. The officials initially began to go through the CCTV footage to identify the primary clues in the case," said a police officer.
While the investigations were underway, the police found that a child was brought to the Wadala Police Station by two men who told the police that the child was handed over to them by a woman known to them and she had asked them to handover the boy to the police, an official said.
The police said, while questioning them, it was found that the woman was the same one who had allegedly picked up the child.
"She was called to the police station and the police officials found that she had been offered Rs 2 lakh by a person from Ghatkopar area if she would manage to bring him a child below 10-year-old," the official said.
The man who had offered her the money for the child was too picked by and in his interrogations another name cropped who too was detained by the police, the police said.
"The deal was to happen in the Kalyan area of Thane but the people involved in the matter got into a dispute related to their shares after which the child was brought to Wadala. The woman later decided to handover the child to the police and met one of her friends at the Wadala bridge where she requested him to take the boy to the police," the official added.
He said that the woman and two people involved in the matter have been arrested and booked under relevant sections of the IPC. The child was later handed over to his mother.