‘Informer’ helps police rescue sevenyearold kidnapped boy

NEWDELHI: POLICE on Sunday said they have recovered a sevenyear-old boy who was kidnapped from outside the Sai Baba temple in south Delhi’s Lodhi Road on Thursday.

The child was allegedly kidnapped by a woman who had recently lost her two children to her estranged husband.

The 29-year-old suspect, Radha, was “lonely” after being separated from her children and decided to kidnap the boy to bring him up as her own child, said an investigator. But the police are simultaneously probing trafficking as a motive.

The boy was rescued on Saturday when Asha, a woman working outside the temple, alerted the police on spotting one of the kidnappers who was revisiting the temple.

Asha, 23, is a member of Delhi Police’s ‘eyes and ears scheme’ – an initiative in which the public helps the police with information gathering.

The police have arrested Radha, and her brother-in-law, Bhajan Singh, 20.

While Radha works as a daily wager, Singh is employed at a canteen in a government office in south Delhi.

The boy, Raj Gautam, lost his mother at an early age and his father went missing soon after, said Vijayanta Arya, Additional DCP (south). He was being cared for by his maternal grandmother and lived in a slum near the Sai Baba Mandir.