HYDERABAD: Three youngsters — T. Maniteja, Jaspal Singh and S. Kishore —not only played a key role in tracing a ragpicker who had kidnapped a five-year-old child at Saidabad last week, but also braved an attack from the accused.
After they spotted the accused moving near a theatre in Vanasthalipuram, they tried to nab him. The accused attacked them with stones and sticks and also bit one of them on his hands in a bid to escape.
DCP South East Zone Chennuri Rupesh said that the trio will be suitably rewarded for their support in detecting the case and most importantly in reuniting the child with his mother.
Police on February 23 had rescued five-year-old P. Ram Charan, who was kidnapped from his mother at Saidabad on February 18, and arrested two persons. The kidnapper was identified as Kadamanchi Pandu, a rag picker, and who sold the child to Ubidi Narsimha, a scrap dealer in Nalgonda, for `10,000.
While the cops were making inquiries in Vanasthalipuram with the boy’s picture, the trio, all private employees, informed them they had seen the boy with a person who usually sleeps near a theatre.
“ We first saw the kidnapper with the child, but realised that the child was kidnapped only after cops were inquiring with the boy's picture and told the cops,” one of the youths, Maniteja, told Deccan Chronicle.
On the request of the cops, they continued to keep an eye for the accused in the area as he frequently moved around near a theatre in Vanasthalipuram.
Two days later, when they spotted him, they immediately alerted the cops. Assuming he might run away, they caught him and handed him to the police. But before they could catch them, sensing trouble, he started attacking them with stones and sticks.
“We managed to catch him with other residents’ support and handed him to the police,” Maniteja’s friends said.
“ We joined them in the search concerned about the safety of a child. We did it to support the police, who are always at our service and we are happy that we could handover the child safely to his mother,” the trio added.
