Cops on lookout for kidnap vehicle almost missed a ‘Beat’

The car with the suspect had already crossed three check posts without being challenged when SI Satheesh Kumar stopped the car and questioned the occupant. The CCTV footage showed that the four-year-old daughter of the couple, Arul Raj and Nandhini, was kidnapped in a red-coloured car. The registration number of the car was not clearly visible and the police team, which went through the footage, had initially thought it was a Santro. They sent alerts to police across the city based on this assumption.

After the school van dropped the girl near the house, Ambika, the house maid in their house, and her boyfriend Mohammed Kalimullah Shettu kidnapped her on Thursday noon. Later, the girl’s father Arul Raj received a call from Shettu, on Ambika’s mobile, demanding a ransom of Rs 60 lakh to release his daughter.

“I immediately lodged a complaint by 2 pm and the police team worked swiftly. Senior officers were in touch with me regularly. The police made us talk to our daughter in the night after she was rescued from a lodge near Kovalam,” recalled Arul Raj in a function at the Police Commissioner’s office on Monday.

Shettu, after abducting the girl, left her and Ambika in the lodge and returned to his house in Red Hills. That was when the police teams were trying to locate ‘the red Santro’ in which the suspect was travelling. He managed to pass three vehicle checks because he was driving a ‘Beat.’ “After collecting details about Ambika’s boyfriend, we were waiting near his house and we saw the red-coloured Beat approaching. When it turned towards the direction of the suspect’s house, we intercepted him. When questioned, he identified himself as Mohamed Kalimullah Shettu. That is when we knew he was the suspect. When further questioned, he disclosed the address of the lodge where Ambika and the victim were kept,” noted the SI Satheesh Kumar.

Based on the details provided by him, the Neelankarai Assistant Commissioner V Visweswaraya tracked the girl and the maid in 20 minutes. Commissioner AK Viswanathan while speaking at the function, which was held to thank the police team for their well-coordinated work, pointed out that technology had helped a lot in solving the crime in less than 10 hours.