Toddler rescued,five held

“We rescued Ishaan from the gang’s hideout in Tilpat,Faridabad. Five persons,including domestic help Savita (19),who had fled with the child on Sunday evening,have been arrested. We are happy to bring back smiles in Ishaan’s family,” said B K Gupta,Delhi Police Commissioner.

Savita identified herself as Seema while seeking employment at the Singhs’ residence in Maharani Bagh on April 10. The others arrested have been identified as Annu Ara Begum (35),Ashok Kiro (23),alleged mastermind Krishan Dev Kumar (32),and Pratima (21).

The five,according to police,were looking to make quick money and planned to demand a ransom of

Rs 2 crore from the Singhs. They planned to wait for a month before making the ransom call,hoping that the momentum of the investigations would lose steam,police added.

On April 24,after Savita took Ishaan out for a stroll in the park,she met Kiro,Kumar and Annu. They took a hired vehicle and went to their hideout in Sarai Kale Khan,police said. The abduction plan had been chalked out a month earlier,they added.

The vehicle used by the accused and Ishaan’s pram are yet to be traced.

The five then moved to Faridabad and dressed Ishaan like a girl — in frock and with bangles — to avoid detection by the 15 specially constituted police teams.

Investigations revealed that the Singhs had hired co-accused Pratima a month ago. Four days before the incident,she left for her native village Raidi in Sundergarh,Orissa.

According to police,Kiro was the first to be arrested on Tuesday afternoon from Khizrabad,followed by the others during a raid at their hideout. Pratima was arrested from Nizamuddin railway station on Wednesday afternoon.

“Pratima was in a relationship with Kiro and their marriage was fixed. We zeroed in on Kiro,who broke down during questioning,” Gupta said.

Kiro provided inputs about the others.

To crack the case,police contacted several placement agencies and more than 2,000 photographs of household helps were shown to the family.

“This was a blind case since no police verification was done for the help. We did not have the accused’s photograph. The mobile phones of the suspects were switched off. The family told us that the maid seemed to be innocent. Our lucky breakthrough was the arrest of Kumar,” he said.

Police also recovered biscuits,baby powder,baby oil and clothing from the hideout.

“Seema told me that she heard from guards that we needed a domestic help. I liked her and employed her. She had one face for us but another for others,” Ishaan’s mother Gayatri said. “Hiring her without checking her antecedents was my biggest folly.”