Mumbai: Five held for kidnapping 12-year-old from Dombivli

Police officers with the child they rescued. The accused had demanded Rs 1.5 crore as ransom; cops traced accused to Surat and nabbed them from there

Manpada police on Saturday arrested three men and two women from Surat for kidnapping a 12-year-old boy from Dombivli.

The accused had kidnapped the boy on November 9 and had demanded Rs 1.5 crore ransom from his father, a well-known businessman. The arrested accused were produced before the court on Sunday and have been remanded in police custody till November 18.

The incident took place on November 9 when the boy left for a class around 8 am. He generally used to return home by 10 am, but as he did not return that day, his family members started to look for him.

Later that day, the victim's father received a call from an unknown number. The caller said, "Your son is with me. If you want your son alive, then arrange Rs 1 crore and give it to me or I will kill him." The father immediately approached the Manpada police.

Cops registered a case and formed 20 teams of cops and started a search operation. A senior police officer told mid-day, "The kidnappers had first demanded Rs 1 crore. But a day after, they again called to ask for Rs 1.5 crore."

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The police found that the second call was made from Nashik and with the help of the local police there, traced the accused. The accused then travelled to Jawhar, where the police intercepted him, but he managed to escape.

Meanwhile police got a tip-off about the main accused, Farahshah Firozshah Rafai, in Surat, Gujarat. Three teams rushed there and with the help of the local police rescued the boy. They arrested Rafai along with Prince Kumar Singh, Sahin Mahetar, Farhind Singh, Nazia Rafai. All five accused are history sheeters with several past cases.

Additional CP Dattatraya Shinde of Thane police said, "We took help from other state's police and formed 20 teams to trace the boy. We arrested the accused from Surat."