Cops rescue kidnapped boy in five hours, nab ex-driver, aide

Madurai: In a swift action, the Madurai police, with the help of their Pudukottai counterparts, rescued a school boy who was kidnapped for ransom on Monday night. Two persons, including a car driver who had formerly worked for the boy’s grandfather, were arrested on Tuesday.

Kiran Rohith (14), studying class 9 in a private school in Madurai, returned home after school by the school transport on Monday evening. When he was walking from the bus stop to his house in Natchathira Nagar, three persons who followed the boy pulled him into a car and fled.

During travel, they called up the boy’s father Ravikumar, a building contractor, and demanded '1 crore as ransom to release his son.

They asked him to hand over the money to them at Keeranur, in Pudukottai district. The parents informed the local police who alerted the south and central zones.

The movement of the kidnappers was also monitored with the help of their cellphone signals.When Keeranur police inspector Velusamy intercepted the car at Puliyur, the trio abandoned the vehicle and the boy, and escaped.

The driver, who suffered a bullet injury as the police opened fire, got caught. He was identified as Ganesan (32) of Tiruchy. The police, with the help of the locals, launched a manhunt for the other two kidnappers.

On Tuesday morning, the locals caught Prabhu (34), hiding in a sugarcane farm in the region, and handed him over to the police.

The police said Prabhu of Dindigul had worked as the car driver of Rohith’s grandfather Subburaj about 10 years ago, and had been the brain behind the abduction of the boy who was rescued in about 5 hours.

The boy, along with his father Ravikumar, met Madurai SP V. Balakrishnan on Tuesday and thanked him profusely for rescuing him from the kidnappers.