Official’s driver detained for ‘eloping’ with bureaucrat’s daughter, faces kidnap charges

The eloped couple, who claimed they were now married, were traced to a slum in Kalwa East on Monday and were detained by Mumbai Police.

According to police officials, the girl lived with her parents and two siblings in Malabar Hill. She studied at a university in London and came down to visit her parents on December 10, 2023.

The girl was on her way back to London on January 13 as her course was to resume after the Christmas vacations. While she was being dropped off by her family members at the airport, the girl stopped the vehicle on Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Marg in Tardeo on the pretext that she was buying something.

“The girl stepped out of the car, crossed the road and escaped in a taxi,” said a police officer. After she switched off her phone and was nowhere to be found, her mother informed her husband and approached Tardeo police station.

“The girl is not a minor due to which a case of kidnapping was not registered initially and only a missing report was filed,” said a police officer.

When the senior bureaucrat and other family members learnt she had eloped with Bajrang Mourya, the girl’s 57-year-old mother alleged she was kidnapped. A a case under sections 366 (Kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage, etc) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code was registered on January 21.

The Tardeo police and Mumbai crime branch officials started to scrutinise Bajrang Mourya and the girl’s call data records and found out that his brother, Ajitkumar, was in constant touch with them. A team from the Mumbai crime branch was sent to his location at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh and he was interrogated.

“We found Rs 9.5 lakh cash, several finger rings, necklaces, earrings, watches, bracelets and two mobile phones in Ajitkumar’s house. He claimed Bajrang called him to Mumbai via flight and gave him the bag and asked him to keep it safely in his house. Ajitkumar further added that Mourya had obtained the cash and valuables from the 19-year-old girl,” said an officer.

Ajitkumar was then brought to Mumbai and handed over to Tardeo police station and arrested on the night of January 23. Police officials added that Tardeo police and crime branch officials had been trying to trace Bajrang and the girl since then. On Monday evening, crime branch officials received a tip-off the duo had been staying in the slums of Kalwa and were taken into custody. The two are currently with the Tardeo police and are yet to arrest Bajrang.

The police officials added that the duo claimed they were married and staying in a rented room in Kalwa. After eloping, they kept changing their locations between Virar and Vasai, after which they rented a room in Kalwa and started to stay there.

“We have come to know that Bajrang is already married and his wife is in the native place,” said an officer. The investigators also learnt that he and the girl had met around four years ago.

“The 19-year-old and her family stayed in government quarters in south Mumbai and Mourya worked as a driver to another bureaucrat. They met then and started seeing each other,” said an officer.