Cops rescue kidnapped baby boy

COIMBATORE: A

childless couple

from Tirupur were detained within 24 hours of kidnapping a seven-month-old boy from

the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital

(CMCH).

The Race Course police identified the accused as Vignesh and his wife Prabhavathi. They had befriended the boy’s parents Selvam and Selvarani, of Virudhachalam, a couple of days ago.

Selvarani, an officer said, had delivered twin boys in CMCH in October 2019. Daily wage labourers, they were rendered jobless due to the lockdown. On Thursday evening, Vignesh and his wife met Selvam and his family at their rented house and spent the night there. They offered to accompany the couple to CMCH to collect copy of the boys’ birth certificates.

On Friday, the four, along with the twins, reached CMCH. “Vignesh sent Selvam to the city railway station to inquire about a job and then went out to a Xerox shop. Prabhavathi, meanwhile, took one of the boys to a weighing machine in the pretext of checking his weight and disappeared,” the officer said.

As Vignesh and Prabhavathi didn’t return with her child, Selvarani lodged a complaint with the Race Course police, who traced the whereabouts of the couple with the help of CCTV footage from the hospital and by tracing their mobile phone tower location.