Chennai police arrested a mother and her daughter for kidnapping a three-year-old boy on Monday. According to news reports, the mother-daughter duo kidnapped the boy, Ajay Manikandan, from his school in Pulianthope on Monday.
The women – N Kuttyama and T Aishwarya – had gone to Ajay’s school on Monday and had requested the teachers to send the boy with them as there was a death in the family. Kuttyama, posing as the boy’s grandmother, also convinced the teachers by disclosing details about Ajay’s family.
When Ajay’s father Prakash went to the school at around 3 pm to pick his son up, the teachers told him that the boy had already left with two women after which Prakash lodged a complaint with the Pulianthope police.
The police, in turn, went through the CCTV footages obtained from the nearby shops and zeroed in on the women. Ajay’s father also informed the police that Kuttyama was a construction worker when he was building a house. The police first went to Kuttyama’s father’s house in Otteri but the women were nowhere to be found. They then checked another house in the same area and found the two women and the boy tied to a chair and gagged.
As per police sources, Kuttyama and her daughter had kidnapped Ajay to sell him to another woman, Jyothi who wanted to adopt a child. After picking Ajay from his school, Kuttyama had reportedly called and informed Jyothi that one of her relatives was willing to give up his child for Rs 2 lakh and the adoption procedures would be over in a week’s time. Kuttyama also allegedly revealed to the police that she had kidnapped an infant from the Primary Health Centre in Pulianthope last month, but left the child behind after fearing of arrest.
The duo were booked for abducting a child under ten years of age and have been remanded to judicial custody.