Ghaziabad: Kidnapped child found, three arrested

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad police have recovered a four-year-old child who was kidnapped on Thursday from the Vasundhara neighbourhood. Four men have been arrested, while the main conspirator - the maid - is still at large, police said on Friday.

The police said they raided the kidnapper's hideout in Lajpat Nagar locality in Ghaziabad where they found the child, Karan, the son of Tejendra Bajaj. But Arti Pal, the missing maid of Bajaj, could not be nabbed. The police rescued the child after some resistance in which gun fire was exchanged.

The police arrested three kidnappers and recovered a Chinese pistol, two country made pistols, two motorcycles and an Alto car.

During sustained interrogation the men revealed that Bajaj employed Arti Pal as maid three months ago. Her husband runs a watch repairing shop in Vasundhara. The couple used to live in Lajpat Nagar. During her three months stay in the job she realized that the family was quite well off and capable of paying ransom if the child was kidnapped, police said.

On her instigation, her nephew Sandeep who used to live with her, hatched the conspiracy. Sandeep contacted three other local goons to execute the plan. They attempted to kidnap the child on September 24 and 27 but could not. But on September 29 they succeeded, police said.

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They engaged three vehicles - a car, and two motorcycles. Sandeep supervised the kidnapping while his accomplices executed the plan to snatch the child from his grandmother when she was bringing him from school, police said.

After taking the child on a motorcycle they transferred him in the car and reached Lajpat Nagar, from where they phoned the family to pay a ransom of Rs.70 lakh. They further warned them to pay the ransom within three days. They gave their names as Praveen, Piyush Tiwari and Zahir, and the names of other accomplices as Sunder Kasana and Sumit. They are still at large along with Arti, the police added.

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"We have arrested three kidnappers, three other criminals are absconding, including the maid Arti," said Superintendent of Police (City) J.K. Sahi.

The family of Tejendra Bajaj faced a tragedy when rumour spread Thursday that the child was roaming alongside the railway track. When the child's aunt Nisha and the sister of Tejendra Bajaj rushed to see the child, the former was overrun by a train.