Mumbai:
Six-year-old Karnit Shah was saved in the nick of time, quite literally. Had the investigators reached even a few hours later than they did, they might have found Karnit's body.
Investigations have revealed that the boy's abductors had planned to kill him. After a 15-day chase, the Mumbai police, with the aid of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF), traced the boy to a hut in Handia, UP, where the accused Surjit Bhind had held the boy. When the cops sneaked into the hut, the boy was lying down, asleep.
Rakesh Sharma, a Mumbai police inspector, who accompanied PSI Anand Bhoir to the village, said, "Bhind had come to know that his associates had been arrested in Mumbai. He was certain that he would fail to obtain the ransom amount from the victim's family. He also knew that keeping the boy for much longer would have resulted in detection. Hence, we were lucky to locate the boy in time, as he had planned something bad for the boy."
According to the police, Bhind had planned to kill the boy, as he had no other choice. He was in regular touch with his counterparts in Mumbai. He found out when the police zeroed in on the kidnappers who were operating from Mumbai. He realised that he would also be nabbed soon. UP STF officer Arvind Mishra said, "When we reached the place, they were sleeping. The accused told us that he knew of the arrest of his accomplices in Mumbai. He realised that it was only a matter of time before the police tracked him down. He had planned to either run away with the boy, or take the boy's life."
Arup Patnaik, commissioner of Mumbai police, said, "There have been only two such cases in my career. In 1992, when I was deputy commissioner of police, we solved two very famous kidnapping cases -- one of Vatsal Shah, and another of Amit Rathi. In both the cases, we failed to recover the kidnapped boys. This has always haunted me, and this time we wanted the kid alive. He is a lucky child and we all are lucky to have rescued him. Our men worked very hard to save him. This is a special day for all of us." He added, "He is a special child and hence we decided to welcome him at the special place where the President and other VIPs are received. It's a great day for us all here."
Rakesh Sharma said, "It was a very emotional time for us when we recovered the boy. We were entrusted with the task, and we are all very relieved that we succeeded in our mission." Anand Bhoir said, "I had prayed to
'Mata' to get this boy. He is like our kid and we wanted to get him at any cost. We put in all our hard work to nab the accused and locate the boy." Anand Bhoir, police sub- inspector at Dahisar police station, and Sharma, police inspector, were the two officers that were chosen by the Mumbai commissioner Arup Patnaik to handle the case of Karnik Shah's kidnapping. The two have been working tirelessly for the last few days. Their efforts were finally rewarded when they recovered the boy and arrested all the five accused.