Pune crime: Duo kidnaps 'rich' kid to make easy money, held

Mahi Jain and her mother with the police personnel who rescued her

A desire to earn easy money led two jobless youngsters to target and kidnap a child from a posh society, but fortunately they were arrested within nine hours of the crime.

The incident took place in Pimpri-Chinchwad at Queenstown Society. Police said the accused, Nitin Satyavan Gajarmal, 25 and Jitendra Papuram Banjara, 21, who worked in a mall, are both jobless. However, Banjara sometimes worked as an usher in cinema theatres. He once worked as a delivery boy and had visited the society then. Police said the friends decided to kidnap a child from the society, assuming well-to-do people stay there, to fund a restaurant they wanted to start.

Shopkeeper tried to chase them
On Thursday when a resident, Mahi Aawad Jain, 12, got off her school bus around 4 pm, she went to a nearby shop to buy a pen. When she was returning, the duo forced her into a car and fled.

Senior Inspector Prabhakar Shinde of Chinchwad police station said, "As the girl shouted for help, the shopkeeper chased the car, but they escaped. The shopkeeper informed her society members, who informed her family, who contacted us." A case of kidnapping was registered by Mahi's maternal uncle Alok Katariya, 35. Her father works with an IT company while mother is employed with a bank.

Police lay a trap
Shinde added that the kidnappers called her family around 8 pm for ransom, following which all police stations and Crime Branch units were roped in to rescue the girl. He said, "Initially they wanted ransom of Rs 50 lakh, but later came down to Rs 7 lakh and gold ornaments. We told Mahi's father to tell them he would meet them at a particular spot to give them the money.

We arrested the accused when they arrived to take it and managed to rescue the girl in nine hours. Around 1 am on Friday, we nabbed the two accused from Nere village near Hinjewadi. They confessed that they targeted the society as they assumed well-to-do people lived there and hence kidnapped Mahi. They wanted to use the money to start their own eatery." They were arrested under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code comprising kidnapping, extortion and common intention.

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