Man abducts kid to recover money lost in job racket, held

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Wednesday said they had arrested a civil services aspirant who allegedly kidnapped a fiveyear-old boy for ransom to recover money he had allegedly lost to a job fraud weeks ago.

The 27-year-old ‘kidnapper’, Asif Saifi, had demanded ₹20 lakh from the child’s father, but was caught after he gave away his location, police added.

Police said Saifi was arrested and the boy rescued from Dadri, Saifi’s home town. “He was inspired by Bollywood films to plan the kidnapping,” said AK Singla, deputy commissioner of police (northeast).

Saifi, police added, is an engineer and had completed his M.tech from a college in Himachal Pradesh. “He was preparing for civil services. In between, he also taught at a private university, but was looking for a government job. It was during this search that allegedly became a victim of a job racket,” said Singla. Saifi allegedly lost Rs 4.5 lakh in the racket and couldn’t, trace the man who cheated him.

“Saifi would frequently visit Subhash Vihar Chowk in Bhajanpura in search of the man. During one such visit last week, he came across the boy playing outside his home,” said the police officer.

Saifi befriended the child after realising that he belonged to a prosperous family. The boy’s father owns a private school, a medical store and a dairy shop – in northeast Delhi’s Mustafabad.

“The accused then hatched a plan to recover his loss by kidnapping the boy. Over the next two days, he visited the neighbourhood twice to conduct a recce. On one occasion, he introduced himself as a neighbour and sought the phone number of the boy’s father,” Singla said.

On Monday, Saifi reached the neighbourhood when the boy was playing outside his house. He allegedly sought the help of a local teenager help to lure the boy to a park.

Saifi then allegedly took the boy to his native village in Dadri, but kept him in an abandoned building near his home.

“The first ransom call was made at 9 am on Tuesday. Saifi borrowed a stranger’s mobile phone to make the demand of Rs 20 lakh. When the phone owner was traced, he claimed innocence,” said the DCP.

The second ransom call was made around 5 pm on Tuesday, this time again from a stranger’s mobile phone. But by this time, the police had a fair idea of the suspect, who was captured by a CCTV near the spot he made the first ransom call.