Surat: A two-and-a-half-year-old girl who was abducted by a man living in her neighbourhood in the Kapodra area was rescued within eight hours of being taken away on Monday.
The accused, Dinesh Charel, spotted the girl playing and abducted her around 6 pm. After human intelligence revealed that he boarded a bus to Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, the city police alerted their Dahod counterparts and rescued the girl at a highway hotel in the early hours of Tuesday.
During preliminary questioning, Charel claimed he kidnapped the child because he was separated from his wife, who took their own child with her. He insisted that he intended to raise the girl as his own daughter. However, the police are investigating whether he was fabricating the story.
Once the girl’s parents reported her missing, multiple police teams from Kapodra, Varachha, Laskana, and Sarthana police stations were formed to trace the girl. The crime branch team also joined the search.
“We informed Dahod police around 3 am after human intelligence and technical surveillance confirmed that he boarded the bus to Jhabua. The bus stopped for refreshments at a hotel from where we rescued the girl and caught Charel,” said Alok Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (zone 1).
“We got to know that he went to a shop to buy snacks for the girl. He was spotted in one CCTV going in a rickshaw toward Kamrej. One of the teams confirmed that he boarded an MP-bound bus. So, we alerted the conductor to halt the bus at the nearest restaurant,” said Kumar, adding that a medical examination of the girl ruled out sexual assault.
CCTVs defunct due to power outage
The toddler was kidnapped around 6pm, but police efforts to retrieve CCTV footage were hampered by a power outage in the area, which caused a crucial 1.5-hour gap in surveillance. “The first footage of the suspect was found 1.5 km away from the crime scene. This delay made tracking more challenging, but our teams managed to trace and rescue the girl,” said Kumar.
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