When the Senior Superintendent of Police of Shamli district in Western Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Sukirti Madhav Mishra, received a frantic call from the parents of a 10-year-old who was abducted for ransom, he immediately set to work and pledged to bring the child back home safely.
In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, the officer shared details about the seven-hour-long mission to save the child from the kidnappers.
A LATE EVENING CALL TO THE POLICE STATION
It was late in the evening on February 8, 2022, when one of the police stations in Shamli received a frantic call from the family members of a 10-year-old boy who was kidnapped by unknown people. The kidnappers asked for a hefty ransom in return for the child’s safety.
The police personnel immediately informed Mr. Mishra of the incident as it was a highly sensitive case, where the life and well-being of a little boy were at stake.
“Kidnapping is one of the most difficult and sensitive cases to deal with, and especially the ones where the kidnappers are demanding a ransom in exchange for the kid. Even a slight move from the police can land the child into dangerous waters. So, we had to tread very cautiously,” Mr. Mishra told Indian Masterminds.
PRIORITIZING THE CASE
Since elections were ahead, the officer and his team were busy implementing assigned protocols for the voting day.
But since the kidnapping case was extremely urgent, the officer prioritized it and immediately set to work by forming several teams.
“We gathered our best men and sensitized them thoroughly. Along with them, we involved the best teams from surveillance cyber cells, crime branches, special operations groups, etc. Further, we formed a kind of ‘situation war room’ to discuss the case and it worked as our control room for the time,” he informed.
WORKING THE CASE
First and foremost, the team analyzed the phone number from which the ransom call was made. Since it was already late in the night, things were going a bit slow, but the officer’s will to save the child remained undeterred.
He sat down to analyze all the phone numbers involved in the case and checked every CCTV footage from near the child’s house. Soon, he found out that the phone number from where the call was made was a new number taken under a fake ID, therefore a dead end.
“We then scurried through surveillance footages and received a lead about the child’s possible whereabouts. Based on that, we picked up some suspects, and through the information provided by them, we raided a few places where we suspected the child could have been kept,” he said.
SUCCESS IN THE 7TH HOUR
After searching for over seven hours, the officer and his team finally rescued the child from a nursery in Baghpat, approximately 70 kilometers from Shamli. He arrested all the people involved in the kidnapping and put them behind bars.
“The main mastermind of the kidnapping was a known person and a relative of the child’s family. He had been keeping tabs on the child for a long time and was well aware of his daily routines along with that of the family. He then got him kidnapped with the sole motive of extracting money from his parents,” said Mr. Mishra.
The officer had promised the child’s father that he would bring him home safely. All through the rescue operation, he kept the parents in the loop, updating them of the latest development, and finally kept his words.
“The happiness of the family after receiving their child is a sense of job satisfaction that is unparalleled and cannot be matched. That feeling is indescribable and is above everything,” Mr. Mishra said.
Mr. Mishra also visited the child at his home, the next day, who was still under the influence of the drugs that were given to him by the kidnappers to keep him asleep.
Kidnapping is one of the trickiest cases for a police officer because it is a matter of life and death for a child.
According to a report by the National Human Rights Commission of India, 40,000 children are abducted each year in the country, leaving 11,000 untraced. These kids are either abducted for ransom or are pushed into human trafficking.
Shamli Police did a commendable job of rescuing a child from kidnappers’ clutches and bringing him back to his family safely.
