HYDERABAD: In a swift action, the Government Railway Protection (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) rescued a one-year-old boy within hours after he had been abducted from the Secunderabad railway station by a woman.
The boy, B. Venkatesh, and his mother, Maragamma, arrived in Secunderabad at 4.30 am on the Narsapur Express from Guntur, and were waiting in line to buy a ticket for the Wadi Express to Sedam in Karnataka's Kalaburagi district, according to railway police.
"There was a long line at the reservation counter when I went to buy a ticket to Sedam. A woman with a 'chunni' covering her face approached me and spoke in Kannada. She told me she was taking the same train as me. After buying the tickets, she told me that I needed to hurry or the train would leave. She insisted that I leave my son with her," Maragamma said.
When she returned, her son was missing. She approached the railway police. Five GRP and RPF teams were dispatched to trace the unidentified woman. The railway police examined CCTV footage and discovered that the kidnapper had left in an autorickshaw. Using CCTV footage, the railway police interrogated the autorichsaw driver, who told them he dropped the woman and a boy in Kavadiguda. Immediately, the railway police conducted a search in Kavadiguda and apprehended the woman after she was seen entering a house.
During the interrogation, the accused identified herself as Lingala Soni, 30, of Sholapur. She stated that she married Lingala Raju in 2017 and that since then she had four miscarriages and was unable to conceive, while her husband used to mentally harass her for not conceiving, according to the police. Lingala Soni has been charged with kidnapping.
