Police rescued a nine-year-old girl and arrested two of her abductors on Friday night.
The girl was allegedly kidnapped in front of her school at Vyas Nagar on Friday afternoon and the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of ` 10 lakh for her release.
The arrested persons have been identified as Tapas Das (22) and Mahammad Noor (21), of Sapagadia village. They were forwarded to court on Saturday and remanded in judicial custody, police said.
According to the complaint lodged by the victim’s father Lala Anjan Anurag, his daughter, a Class III student of Saint Mary School at Kanheipur, did not return home after school. When they checked with the school bus driver, he told them that she was instead picked up by a family friend. While cross-checking with their friends, they got a call demanding a ransom of ` 10 lakh to release their daughter. They immediately reported the matter to police. Anurag works as a manager in L&T Company, engaged in Tata Steel’s proposed project at Kalinga Nagar.
“We verified the phone number and soon deployed policemen in plainclothes in suspected areas. They were soon traced to Sapagadia village. We managed to nab two of the kidnappers and rescue the girl,” said Jajpur SP Deepak Kumar. Efforts are on to arrest others involved in the case, he added.