Kidnap @ Ganesha pandal: 5-yr-old girl rescued from debt-ridden neighbour after chase

Bengaluru: A joyful evening at a Ganesha pandal turned into a nightmare when five-year-old Rekha (name changed) suddenly vanished while playing. She had been kidnapped for ransom!

The incident occurred at Ijoor, around 50km from Bengaluru in the neighbouring Ramanagara district. Unlike other such cases that usually take a horrific turn, Rekha was rescued by fellow villagers in the nick of time after her father raised an alarm. The little girl’s hands and legs were tied up and her mouth too was gagged with adhesive tape when she was found.

Based on circumstantial evidence and eyewitness accounts, police arrested 26-year-old H Darshan, the girl’s neighbour. He is unemployed and debt-ridden.

The drama unfolded at 9pm when Rekha, who is the eldest daughter of a private company employee, visited the pandal. Her mother had stayed back at home to take care of her younger sister. While Rekha was having fun, her father got busy with helping others at the pandal. A few minutes later, he turned around and realised that his daughter was missing. As panic set in, the father raised an alarm that quickly rallied fellow villagers into action.

“Everyone started searching for her and fanned out in different directions. By then, someone had called the police control room,” an officer said. The policemen in plainclothes, who were on duty at the pandal, scanned the CCTV footage which showed Rekha walking along with a youth towards an under-construction building in the vicinity.

Meanwhile, Rekha’s father received a WhatsApp call from someone outside his contacts’ list. The caller announced that he had kidnapped his daughter for ransom. “I will call you later in the night and tell you how much money to bring and where to meet. If you tell the police, your daughter will be dead,” the caller told him. According to police, the girl’s father could not recognise the voice.

In the meantime, police met the girl’s father and asked him if he knew the man seen in the video. “The girl’s father identified him as artist Darshan. He informed us about the phone call and we rushed in the direction where Darshan had taken the girl. By then, some youths had tried to intercept Darshan when he was trying to flee. He was caught after a chase,” an officer said.

When the youths checked the under-construction building, they found the girl near a few concrete blocks. The villagers quickly unwrapped the tape on her mouth and untied her hands and legs. “The first thing that the terrified girl asked was for her father,” police said. Soon, the youths picked up the girl and ran towards the pandal, announcing the happy news. Subsequently, all the search parties returned.

Police said Darshan had picked up the tape from the pandal itself. Darshan told police that he decided to kidnap the girl as she was alone at the pandal and he hoped to extort money to pay off his debts, which added to Rs 2.5 lakh. Darshan said he had been shouldering the family responsibility after her father’s death.