Delhi: Man held for abducting children, demanding Rs 50 lakh ransom

Delhi: A man was arrested for kidnapping a boy and his sister last month for ransom, police reported. The suspect, Prateek Shrivastava, 34, was apprehended in Mandawali on Thursday evening.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Apoorva Gupta, Shrivastava committed the crime after noticing the children alone in a car while their parents were purchasing sweets from a shop in East Delhi.

Shrivastava, who works as an air-conditioner mechanic and had previous experience with cab aggregators and food delivery apps, took advantage of the situation by convincing the children that he needed to move the car to a parking lot. He then drove away with the six-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl on June 28.

The father promptly alerted the police, triggering a search involving 200 police vehicles. The car was eventually located, leading to a 200-kilometer chase within the city before Shrivastava abandoned the vehicle near Samaypur Badli and fled.

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The children were safely rescued, and Shrivastava was later arrested from Mandawali, where he lived with his wife and two children. Gupta mentioned that Shrivastava had demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh through a mobile phone left in the car by the children’s mother.

Gupta added that Shrivastava had observed parents leaving children unattended in cars for quick purchases, which prompted him to execute his plan. The family from Faridabad had come to Delhi for a day out and street food, stopping briefly for sweets when the incident occurred. (With inputs from PTI)