Hyderabad: Barely 24 hours after she was kidnapped, a two-and-a-half-year old girl was traced and rescued on Friday by the Malakpet police, who arrested the kidnapper with the help of surveillance cameras.
The arrested person was identified as K.Sravan Kumar (29), an auto-rickshaw driver from Golnaka in Amberpet. According to the police, in the early hours of Thursday, the child Ammulu was sleeping between her parents A Ajay and Laxmi, both rag pickers, on the pavement at Moosarambagh, when she was kidnapped by Sravan Kumar on a bike.
Her parents woke up in the morning to find Ammulu missing and approached the Malakpet police, who booked a case of kidnap and began investigation. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said Sravan, who was earlier involved in theft cases in Kachiguda, Malakpet and Saroornagar, used to ply his auto-rickshaw between Amberpet and Moosarambagh.
“During this, he noticed the child playing on the footpath and living there along with her parents. Sravan, who was unhappy with his earnings as an auto-rickshaw driver plotted to kidnap and sell her to childless couples,” Anjani Kumar said.
Sravan reached Moosarambagh on a scooter, which he parked near a house in the adjacent residential colony and stayed put there until the child and her parents went to sleep. After confirming that the parents had slept, he kidnapped the child and took her to his house on the scooter, from where he had plans of finding a childless couple to sell her, the Commissioner said.
The police, who formed several teams to trace the kidnapped child, verified CCTV footage from in and around Malakpet and came upon visuals of the kidnap, after which Sravan was identified. He was traced at his house in Golnaka, from where the child was rescued.
He had used a stolen scooter, which was also recovered, police said.