Thane: 5-Year-Old Boy Abducted From Bhiwandi, Kidnapper Arrested in Powai; Motive Under Investigation

In a swift operation, the police have rescued a five-year-old boy abducted from Maharashtra’s Thane district and arrested the accused within five hours of the crime, an official told the news agency PTI.

The accused, Iqbal Guddu Ansari (34), a textile worker from Bhiwandi, was cornered and arrested from a hideout in the Powai area of neighbouring Mumbai after multiple police teams used technical surveillance and intelligence inputs to trace him on Thursday, May 14. The child was playing outside his house in the Sawandhe area of Bhiwandi around 9.30 am when the accused lured him away, Inspector Harshawardhan Barave of the Bhiwandi taluka police station said.

After the boy’s disappearance, the father lodged a police complaint, and a case of kidnapping was registered. The police immediately swung into action, he said.

Also Read | Mumbai Teen Rescued After Alleged Kidnapping and Forced Marriage in Bihar; Accused Arrested.

Multiple teams were formed to trace the child, and with the help of technical surveillance, they tracked the suspect across multiple jurisdictions, tracing him to Khairanipada in Powai. “Our teams, with the assistance of personnel from the Powai police station, raided a location in Khairanipada and successfully rescued the child within five hours,” Barave said.

“The probe revealed that the accused had treated the child with severe cruelty. Consequently, we have added section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, apart from the section related to kidnapping under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita to the case,” he said. Further investigation is underway to ascertain the motive behind the kidnapping.