Within 14 hours of being kidnapped, a six-month-old baby boy of a footpath dweller was rescued and two people were arrested on Sunday. The duo was identified as Dinesh Saroj, 35, an auto-rickshaw driver and Ankit Prajapati, 25, a tailor. Both of them are Ulhasnagar residents.
According to Kalyan's Mahatma Phule police, the baby's mother, Ayesha, is a scrap collector and the infant was abducted on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday from a footpath near KDMC bus depot at Murbad Road. After a frantic search, Ayesha approached the police and filed a complaint.
The cops started the investigation by scanning the CCTV footage of the area. They made a breakthrough as they spotted two people lifting the infant, placing him in a bag and fleeing in an auto. Senior Inspector Shailesh Salvi said, “We formed three teams to find the baby. While one team scanned the CCTV footage, another worked on technical intelligence. The job of the third team was to get tip-offs from local informers.”
Salvi further added that during the investigation, they had suspicion on Ayesha's husband as he was not present when the baby was kidnapped. However, further probe revealed that he was at his relatives' place in Mumbai at the time of the incident. “We spotted a number of auto-rickshaws at the abduction spot. Accordingly, we sent their registration numbers to the regional transport office to ascertain the name of the owners,” said the cop.
Based on a tip-off, the cops reached Saroj's house where he lives with his wife and four sons. His wife was found feeding the baby, who was subsequently rescued, said the police, adding that whether the reason behind the abduction was superstition or human trafficking is being probed. Both the accused have been remanded in police custody.
