CHENNAI: A 15-year-old boy, abducted at Pallikaranai for a ransom of Rs 50 lakh, was released at Velacherry after he informed the kidnappers that he was the son of a centring labourer, on Monday.
Police said Vignesh of Kamakshi Nagar, Pallikaranai, a class X student in a government school, was waiting at a bus stand near a private hospital at Pallikaranai to go home after tuitions when a car stopped in front of the stand on Monday. The boy told police that he saw three men inside the car and one of them got down and asked for directions. Just as he was explaining, the other men got down and Vignesh was gagged and pushed inside the car.They asked the boy for his father Murugesan’s numberand called Murugesan from a public telephone booth at Vijaya Nagar, Velachery, and demanded `50 lakh. After they hung up the phone, Vignesh told them that his father was a labourer doing centring work. Hearing the boy, they released and dropped him in front of the Velachery bus terminus after half an hour. They had again called up Murugesan from the same telephone booth to inform him that they left his son at the bus terminus.
Police, who heard Vignesh’s version, are investigating if the incident really had taken place. “All that we have is the boy’s version of the kidnap. We are tracing phone numbers we have got. There seems to be no financial motive or previous enmity. Nobody had seen the boy being left at the bus terminus,” said a police official.