A 27-year-old UPSC aspirant was on Tuesday arrested for kidnapping a five-year-old boy for a ransom of Rs 20 lakh in Northeast Delhi's Bhajanpura area, police said on Wednesday. Within a span of nine hours, police managed to trace the kidnapper and rescue the child, police claimed.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast) Dr AK Singla said, “We have arrested one Asif Saifi for kidnapping a five-year-old boy from near his house in Bhajanpura area.”
Saifi, who has been preparing for UPSC exams, had kidnapped the child for ransom to repay to repay a loan of Rs 5 lakh to someone, police said.
Police said that Saifi told police that he had a debt of Rs 5 lakh which he had to repay for the course he had taken up to pursue the IAS preparations.
On March 12, around 2.30pm, father of the five-year-old boy reported that his son went missing.
On March 13, around 9 am, the boy's father received the first ransom call. Following which a team under Addl DCP 1 Rajendra Prasad Meena managed to trace the phone from which the ransom call was made.
A senior police officer said, “Saifi acted smart and made the ransom call from the phone of a total stranger. However, that man managed to identify Saifi, who was seen with the five-year-old boy.”
“Four hours later, the kidnapper made the second ransom call. The team zeroed down on his location near the Dadri bus stand and caught him,” said the officer.
During interrogation, Saifi claimed that he has completed a degree in M.tech. For the past one and a half year, he has been preparing for UPSC exams for which he took a loan of Rs 5 lakh from a man who stays near the house of the five-year-old boy.
For the past one week, Saifi was keeping the boy. On the day of kidnapping, he asked another minor boy to call out the five-year-old boy. “The accused claimed that he is an uncle of the body and wants to take him for a ride. It was then the accused lured the child and kidnapped him,” said the officer. Police said that they are planning to book the minor boy for his role in the kidnapping.