On Friday, December 9, a 24-year-old woman was kidnapped by dozens of youths in broad daylight from her home in the Adibatla area of Ranga Reddy district in Telangana. According to reports, the parents of the victim alleged that a group of around 100 young men, all carrying arms, barged into their house and forcibly took their daughter Vaishali away.
According to reports, M Vaishali Reddy, a student pursuing dentistry was abducted just hours before her engagement.
The family members further reported that they too were attacked by the miscreants and the police refused to help.
The visuals from the incident show hoards of men rushing inside a house while some on the streets were vandalizing the car of the family. Further, the men can be seen beating up who appears to be the father of the girl. The parents had filed a police complaint but accused the police of not taking immediate action in the case.
However, after the video of the incident went viral, the Telangana police launched a search operation and rescued the woman after six hours. The police also arrested sixteen accused on charges of kidnapping, attempt to murder, trespass etc under various sections of IPC. However, Naveen, who has been named as the main accused by the victim’s parents is still on the run. The police are trying to identify and arrest the others as well, they said.
Rachakonda Additional CP, Sudheer Babu informed that the accused have been booked under serious offences including 307 of the IPC. He confirmed that it was purely a kidnapping case. After the victim was kidnapped she was beaten up and threatened by the accused, he added.
The woman’s family claimed that Naveen Reddy, who had allegedly been pressuring the woman to be married, was responsible for organising the mob and taking the woman hostage. The parents further said that Naveen has a franchise for a branded tea store and had put up a glass-walled cafe right opposite her home.
Naveen claims that he had married Vaishali, but later her parents got her mind changed, and she left him and joined dental college. However, Vaishali has denied this claim.
On Friday, Naveen went with workers from his tea stall, claiming his ‘wife’ refused to live with him, and he wanted to take her home. As she refused to go with him, he forcefully abducted her. After the girl was abducted by Naveen, her family vandalised and demolished his cafe near their house.
According to Ibrahimpatnam police, Vaishali is the daughter of a former army officer. She had met Naveen on a badminton court and the two had become close. Naveen is said to have even bought her a car from the profits his multilevel marketing company had generated.
Vaishali’s father reportedly told the media, “They had met while playing badminton, and were on friendly terms. He (Naveen) then proposed marriage through some mediators, but she rejected the proposal. We refused through the mediators. He had been complaining about it to others, questioning the rejection.”
Victim’s family accuses Telangana police of being apathetic to the case
Vaishali’s father claimed that the family had also reported to the Telangana police’s SHE squads division about his alleged harassment on the day of the immersion of the Ganesh idol. “He then sent politically influential persons as mediators. We still refused. He held a grudge over this, and has kidnapped her now,” the father said. He said there were around 20 relatives in the house when the incident happened.
The woman’s mother claimed that they had previously reported him to the police for allegedly harassing them and that she had rejected his proposal of marriage. They had been trying to arrange for their daughter’s marriage, she claimed. The family had planned to meet a potential groom on Friday, according to a neighbour.
The victim’s family staged a protest on the Nagarjuna Sagar highway, causing a traffic jam. They also broke down and set fire to the tea shop that is reportedly part of a chain owned by Naveen Reddy after Vaishali’s abduction. They raised slogans against Adibatla Inspector of Police Narender for his alleged negligence in the case.