Chennai
Ramachandran (name changed), a Class 9 student, went to his tuition class on Wednesday evening but did not return home. His father, a businessman, received a phone call around 8.30 pm, with the caller claiming that he had kidnapped the boy and sought Rs 10 lakh to return him.
Panicked by this, the father approached the Triplicane police, who tracked the tower location of the phone used to make the call to Chepauk. When the officials rushed there, they spotted the boy who was alone and rescued him. When they checked the CCTV footage from the area, they saw the boy getting off an autorickshaw.
The police traced and secured the auto driver, but much to their surprise, he was found out to be innocent. That is when the suspicion fell on the boy himself. During questioning, he admitted to the officials that he had staged the kidnap drama.
“The boy has a phone and used an application to sound like an adult to make his father believe that his son has really been kidnapped,” said inspector Chandramohan, who investigated the case. Officials said the father used to scold the boy often, which led the latter to plan the drama to earn his sympathy. They added that the boy sought the money to ensure that the father believed the kidnap story. He was later let off with a warning after a written statement from his father.
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