CHENNAI: A three-member special team of the Government Railway Police (GRP) is on its way to Bhubaneswar, Odisha after learning that a gang of women, reportedly from Tamil Nadu, was caught for running a begging racket using children.
The team is pursuing the case of a child that was kidnapped from Chennai Central station on May 3.
This is the first real lead in the case, which comes weeks after Sridhar, the three-year-old, went missing.
On that day, minutes after his parents found him missing, the CCTV cameras at Chennai Central had recorded footage of a woman wearing a red sari guiding the child away towards an EMU train bound for Andhra Pradesh.
The GRP had launched a massive man-hunt to locate the woman and the boy as the woman was reportedly seen at some suburban stations. However, all efforts had proved futile so far.
Now the GRP sent its team today, two days after eight women were arrested at Bhubaneswar station for running a begging racket with young children. Sources say that this decision to send a team was prompted following news reports that the arrested women belonged to Tamil Nadu.
The three-member team from Tamil Nadu GRP would physically check the children involved in the begging racket and probe the possibility of Sridhar being trafficked into the trade as well, official sources said.
Officials have also asked their Odisha peers for the photographs of children who were rescued at Bhubaneswar station.
Sridhar’s parents Murugamuthu (37) and Rathi (28), both construction workers, had just arrived from Tuticorin, their native place, by the Pearl City Express at Egmore station on May 3 with their three young boys to spend a summer break with their relatives in new Washermenpet.
While passing through MMC, Murugamuthu and his kids had bought milk at the Aavin booth inside the station and was walking towards a suburban train when they noticed that Sridhar was missing minutes later.
