A married couple was arrested for the abduction of a month-old baby following their daughter’s request for a sibling to tie rakhi during the approaching Raksha Bandhan festival, police reported on 25 August. The 41-year-old Sanjay Gupta and his 36-year-old wife Anita Gupta, inhabitants of Raghubir Nagar in Tagore Garden, told the police that their 17-year-old son had passed away the previous year.
Police received information about the kidnapping of an infant belonging to a disabled woman around 4:34 a.m. on 24 August. The homeless complainant couple who reside on a sidewalk near Chhatta Rail Chowk informed that they noticed their child was missing at around three in the morning and believed that someone had taken him.
Since the place where the family sleeps is not covered by CCTV cameras, the police scanned the adjacent area’s CCTV cameras and identified a motorcycle with suspicious movements in the area, with a male rider and a female pillion passenger. The bike took several turns on a particular route.
As the number of the two-wheeler was not clear, the police chased it with CCTV cameras along the route. The officer stated that they examined 400 CCTV cameras and tracked them to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital.
He revealed that after conducting an inquiry into all the information, authorities discovered that the two-wheeler was registered in Sanjay Gupta’s name.
The area was cordoned off by 15 armed police officers, and a search operation was conducted. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi, they zeroed down on a house in C-Block in Tagore Garden’s Raghubir Nagar, where they found the accused couple and the abducted infant.
He stated that the perpetrators disclosed that their 15-year-old daughter was requesting for a brother to tie rakhi on the forthcoming Raksha Bandhan festival on 30th August. Their son passed away on 17 August of last year after falling off a terrace. Therefore, they made the decision to steal away a boy. The victim was spotted asleep away from his mother near Chhatta Rail Chowk by them and they proceeded to kidnap him so that he could be raised as their son.
“Their 15-year-old daughter had expressed a desire for a brother to tie a rakhi on for the upcoming Raksha Bandhan on August 30, 2023. Motivated by this, they decided to abduct a male child. They encountered this particular child sleeping at a distance from his mother near Chhatta Rail Chowk. The couple kidnapped the child with the intention of raising him as their own son,” said the DCP.
He added, “The abducted boy was merely one month old. His mother is physically disabled, lacking the use of both hands and legs, while his father is a rag picker. The family is homeless, residing on a footpath near Chhatta Rail Chowk, without strong ties in society.”
Anita Gupta is a mehendi artist while her spouse is a tattoo artist by profession. According to the authorities, the latter had previously been involved in three criminal instances.
