Three-year-old kidnapped from Lingampally rescued, three held
A three-year-old girl who was allegedly kidnapped while sleeping beside her mother on a pavement near Lingampally Railway Station was rescued by the Cyberabad Police
A three-year-old girl who was allegedly kidnapped while sleeping beside her mother on a pavement near Lingampally Railway Station was rescued by the Cyberabad Police, who arrested three persons accused of running an organised child trafficking network under the guise of illegal adoptions. According to the police, the child went missing in the early hours of July 16 after she and her mother, Badheto Govindamma (23), a street vendor from Guntakal in Anantapur district, had spent the night sleeping on the pavement outside Bhavani Hotel near Platform No. 6 of Lingampally Railway Station.
Govindamma told the police that she woke up around 4.30 a.m. to find her daughter missing. Based on her complaint, the Chandanagar police registered a case under Section 137(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 84 of the Juvenile Justice Act and launched an investigation. Police teams conducted searches across Cyberabad, Vikarabad and Mahabubnagar districts to trace the accused and rescue the child before she could be sold. The arrested persons were identified as Kothi Srinivas (36) of Parigi in Vikarabad district, Doma Rama Krishna (23) of Bandlaguda, and Paladhi Navaneetha, (31) of Mahabubnagar.
According to the police, Navaneetha, a staff nurse and laboratory technician employed at a private diagnostic laboratory in Mahabubnagar, had established contacts with childless couples seeking to obtain children outside the legal adoption process. Around two months ago, a woman identified as Rani allegedly approached Navaneetha seeking a child through an illegal adoption. Navaneetha then instructed Srinivas to procure a child in exchange for money. On the night of July 15, Srinivas and Rama Krishna travelled to Lingampally Railway Station on a motorcycle looking for a child to kidnap.
At around 2 a.m. on July 16, they spotted Govindamma sleeping with her daughter on the pavement, abducted the child and fled. The child was taken to Mahabubnagar, where Navaneetha allegedly instructed the accused to bring her near the Government Area Hospital so that she could be handed over to the prospective buyer in exchange for money. Before the transaction could take place, police teams intercepted the accused, rescued the child safely and arrested all three.
The BriefWire