NEW DELHI: Delhi Police, on Saturday, busted a gang of child traffickers who used to kidnap minor boys, aged between nine and 13 years, and push them into committing crimes like robbery at crowded markets and weddings.
The gang members used to dress up the children with expensive clothing so that nobody doubted that they were kidnapped. They would also thrash them if the minors insisted on returning home.
“Nine children were rescued from the kidnappers and reunited with their families.
We are also looking for other children who were kidnapped by the gang members,” said a police officer.
According to cops, the accused were identified as Anil Mandal, Sandeep Kumar and Chander Shekhar Kumar Aggarwal. They knew each other since they lived in the same colony and conspired to kidnap the kids, since they were afraid to commit thefts on their own. “The gang members felt like they were teachers, who could train the kidnapped kids,” said a police officer.
Since a number of missing complaints were filed from a single colony, cops suspected that the kidnappers too belonged to the same locality. “Parents of kidnapped kids also felt that the two or three men, from their own locality, committed the crime,” added the officer.
DCP (west) Vijay Kumar constituted several teams to nab the accused persons. The teams raided all possible hideouts of the accused person and finally nabbed them when they were trying to flee from the city.
Cops said that the boys were first trained and then sent to marriage functions and crowded markets. The gang members believed that the minors could get away by stealing items like phones, cash and jewellery. Eight expensive mobiles were recovered from the accused men and four cases were worked out with their arrest, police claimed.
“Six children were rescued on the first day, while three more juveniles were rescued a day later,” added a senior police officer.