Little Joel home,but it was a close call

The police had already arrested the domestic help,Sonia Chhordhar (19) and her accomplice,Anil Kumar (45). Sonia’s friend,Raju,who had planned the crime,is absconding.

A special police team of East Delhi — including Sub-Inspector Vinay Yadav and Additional Commissioner of Police G S Meena — had rescued the child from Sonoth village on Tuesday evening,a day after he was kidnapped from his New Ashok Nagar home.

Had the police been a day late,the boy would have been sold to a local gang.

Sonia and Anil had told police they had gone to the village to sell the boy for Rs 5 lakh,an officer said. And this,he added,is not an isolated incident. Recent cases point to a trend of kidnappers selling abducted persons to gangs operating in and around Etah. The gang then makes the ransom call. “In this case,Raju,had talked Sonia into kidnapping the boy,” an officer said. A resident of Nizamabad in Etah,he knew he could sell the child. “He had convinced Sonia after promising her marriage and a life of luxury. His accomplice Anil Kumar told us that they had fixed the house in Sonoth village to hand the boy over to the gang.”

There are several such gangs operating across UP,Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (see map). The areas lie on the border belt of the three states. On November 23,a seven-year-old boy,kidnapped from Jhilmil Colony was rescued from a village in Kanpur. The kidnappers had received Rs 2.5 lakh. In 2007,two financiers — Ravinder and Ajay — had been kidnapped from New Ashok Nagar. They had been held captive in Ferozabad for 25 days and released after Rs 25 lakh was paid.