BHUBANESWAR: The city police arrested seven persons including a tuition teacher for allegedly kidnapping a nine-year-old boy from Panchagaon locality within Airfield police limits here on Tuesday.
Police said key accused, 22-year-old Subhakant Mohapatra, the tuition teacher, along with six others - Somnath Das (21), Chinmay Kumar Nayak (22), Sandip Routray (22), Sagar Nayak (21), Sujata Jena (19) and Nibedita Das (19) - abducted the boy while he was returning home from school at around 10 am.
Police commissioner S Dev Datta Singh said swift action on part of the Airfield police and their counterparts in Nirakarpur of Khurda and Ranpur in Nayagarh resulted in arrested of all the accused within six hours of the abduction.
Singh said Arta Ranjan Kalia of Panchagaon lodged a complaint with Airfield police alleging that he received a call from an unknown number at around 10.30 am informing that his son had been kidnapped. Soon, raids were conducted in different parts of Bhubaneswar and Khurda. Police also interrogated Mohapatra, the minor boy’s tuition teacher, after finding that he had reached out to the latter’s family to inform about the incident, minutes after they got a call from the kidnappers. Mohapatra allegedly told the parents that the kidnappers took their son with them and even threatened him at gunpoint not to reveal the matter to anyone. However, after intense grilling, he reportedly confessed to the crime.
During investigation, police came to know that Mohapatra had hatched the plan along with his associates after learning that the boy’s family had received a hefty sum from selling a patch of land.
The accused then kidnapped the boy in their four-wheeler while he was returning home from school. The minor was rescued unharmed from a rented accommodation in Narakarpur slum, police said adding, the vehicle used in the abduction was also seized.