The kidnapping of an 18-month-old in Hyderabad resulted in an unexpected tragedy for the toddler’s family. While the police were successful in locating and rescuing the boy, his father died from the stress of the incident just a few hours before the rescue.
T Naga Chaitanya, the youngest son of Narender and Malathi, went missing on Friday night while playing in front of his house in Vinayaka Nagar.
“His mother, T Malathi, said that Naga was playing with his three siblings. At around 8.30pm, he went missing. Within an hour, she came and filed a complaint,” said P Jagadeeshwar, Inspector of Mailardevpally police station.
After receiving the complaint, the police scanned CCTV footage from the area, and found footage from a hotel near Vinayak Nagar which showed a woman carrying the boy away.
Working from the footage, police tracked down the suspect Kavita, a resident of Budwel, and found that she had sold the boy to another man.
“She had sold the boy to A Ramu for Rs 25,000, and had taken an advance of Rs 5,000,” said Jagadeeshwar.
According to the police, Kavita was working as a daily wage labourer in a function hall in Secunderabad. A Ramu, the labour supervisor in the function hall, has three daughters but wanted a son instead.
“He announced to all the labours that if anybody gave him a boy child he would pay them well. That was why Kavita abducted the child, and handed him over to Ramu on Friday night,” Jagadeeshwara said.
Police arrested Ramu from Secunderabad and rescued Naga Chaitanya from a house in Puranapul at around 4pm on Saturday evening.
Tragically, Narender, who worked in a factory, suffered a heart attack on Saturday morning and died just hours before police found Naga Chaitanya.
Kavita and Ramu have been booked under sections 363 (kidnapping) and 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) of the IPC and section 81 of The Juvenile Justice Act.
