Cops observe rise in abductions during examination season
Cops observe rise in abductions during examination seasonu00a0
Four kidnap incidents in the city over the past 40 days have kept the police on their toes. The police now think the rise in such occurrences is related to the examination season as stressed students are easy targets.
"Many times owing to fear or stress children are easy prey to the tricks of abductors," said Police Inspector Kishor Jadhav of the Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC).
On Tuesday, an alert bus driver, Yuvraj Kenjale, foiled an attempt to kidnap a five-year-old schoolboy, Kisan Sharma, from the premises of Spicer Higher Secondary School on Aundh Road.
Another child abducted from Pimpri was rescued from Hubli on February 10, while on February 1 a girl student was kidnapped just outside her college and taken for a four-hour drive before being set free.
While the AEC of the Crime Branch in co-ordination with personnel from the local police stations managed to solve the cases, the reason behind the spurt in kidnappings left them perplexed. Now the police believe it has something to do with students being so preoccupied with exams and battling the stress that comes with it that they do not remain as alert as they would otherwise be.
The police have appealed to parents to pay extra attention to their children during exam time, so as to avoid such incidents.
"We appeal to the parents and other concerned people to be wary, so any abduction attempt is foiled.
Especially during the ongoing exam season the child's psychology needs to be understood," Jadhav said. "Each and every call we get about a kidnapping is taken seriously. But the recent incidents which were reported, especially those involving children have highlighted another aspect. There's no particular gang or organised crime syndicate committing the offences, so our task has become even more difficult."
