
CHENNAI: A mahila court in Chennai on Wednesday sentenced a domestic aide and her male friend to life imprisonment for kidnapping a three-and-a-half-year old child the worker was taking care of in 2019 from her house in Aminjikarai police station limits.
The child was rescued from the convicts identified as Kaleemullah Sait (30) and M Ambika (24) within 24 hours after she was kidnapped. The girl was kidnapped soon after her return from school right in front of her mother’s eyes in the western part of the city.
The parents of the child, a doctor and an IT professional, received a ransom call for Rs 60 lakh with a threat to kill the child. The ransom was reduced to Rs 30 lakh but it eventually wasn’t paid as the child was rescued by the police. A few clues proved to be vital in solving the case and securing the conviction.
One was a red car owned by Kaleemullah which was used to transport the child to a resort on East Coast Road. The second was tracking of the contact number through which the ransom call was made by Sait. The number and the phone was being used by Ambika and on the day of the incident, it was recovered from Sait.
The court was convinced with the prosecution’s evidence to prove that Sait and Ambika had booked a room in the resort, where they kept the child till her rescue. When confronted by the police, Ambika had claimed that the child’s mother had asked her to take her to the resort, which was deemed to be false. Detailed call data record entries and location histories of the accused helped prove the case in court.
Convicting the duo under Section 364A of the IPC which deals with kidnap, the court sentenced them to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2,000 each. Before the sentence was pronounced, Ambika told the court that Sait had no role in the kidnap other than dropping her and the child at the resort.