A two-year-old girl who went missing in Hyderabad was rescued within three hours by police. The child was playing outside her home near Tondupally bridge under Shamshabad police station limits on Thursday when she was spotted and taken away by an auto trolly driver.
The child's parents who are labourers by profession were attending to house chores when the girl who was playing right outside their hut went missing after 9:40 am. The 2-year-old unknown to her parents had walked off along the Shamshabad highway and was picked up by 35-year-old Sandeep.
Sandeep, is an auto trolly driver ferrying vegetables from neighbouring villages in Shamdhabad and supplying to the markets. He spotted the weeping toddler on the highway sidewalk and decided to take her with him to his residence at Rallaguda.
"The man was living alone in his hut for the past eight years and is unmarried. He brought the child to his house but didn’t alert the police. He says he was intending to alert the police. He gave her some biscuits and had informed his neighbours about finding a girl child on the highway, we enquired about him, he has a clean reputation otherwise," said N Venkatesh, inspector Shamshabad police station to TNM.
The police received a distress call on 100 at 10: 20 am from the parents, the Shamshabad police deployed 3 three teams to trace the missing child. "We got CCTV footage of Sandeep taking the child but the number plate was unclear, we then traced his movements,” said Venkatesh. The police reviewed 13 CCTV cameras to reach Sandeep's residence and rescued the child by 1 pm.
The child is back with her parents. Police have booked a case of kidnapping against Sandeep and will be producing him before the court on Friday.