Mumbai: More than two years after she was abducted from near her house in the Tulinj area of Nallasopara, a 17-year-old girl was finally rescued from her kidnappers by the Palghar police from a remote village in Haridwar, Uttarakhand. Two men have been arrested and more arrests are expected.
While the girl has been reunited with her family, the duo has been booked for alleged abduction and rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevent sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The accused have been remanded to five-day police custody.
According to the police, the girl had disappeared on March 29 2015, following which a missing person’s report was registered at the Tulinj police station in Nallasopara. Despite efforts by the police team, the matter remained inconclusive, and the case had been put on the backburner. But acting on the fresh directives from top police officials to intensify the drive to trace missing children and streamline security arrangements to reduce incidents of children’s disappearance, senior police inspector Kishore Khairnar under the instructions of SP (Palghar) Manjunath Singhe revived the investigation.
“During investigations, it came to light that the girl had recently called up her mother indicating that there was a threat to her life, but the only hint she could give about her whereabouts was that she was held captive at some unknown location in Haridwar.” said Mr Khairnar. Armed with the clue, a police team led by sub-inspector Tushar Malode left for Haridwar. Backing them up from the police control room was a team of cyber experts led by sub-inspector Jaichand Thakur, which providedinformation on the location of the accused on the virtue of electronic surveillance.
