Mobile clue aids capture of abductor

HYDERABAD/PATNA: Ten days after Manikanta was kidnapped for ransom, Sujata heard her three-year-old son's voice for the first time on Tuesday. On the phone from Patna, Manikanta screamed when he heard his mother's voice and Sujata burst into tears. "I am now worried about his health," said Sujata, who had had to be admitted to hospital in depression after her pre-schooler was kidnapped by Uday Kumar alias Naveen, a worker at her husband's dairy farm on Oct.9. After 10 tortuous days came the news that the Patna police had arrested Uday Roy near Patna. The boy was medically examined in Patna and found to be unharmed. "Uday was not a stranger to Manikanta. The boy called him uncle," said a police officer, presenting the kidnapper before the media in Patna. Uday Roy of Samastipur district had come to Hyderabad looking for a job and found work as a milkman at Manikanta's father Raj Kumar Goud's dairy farm in Secunderabad. After kidnapping the boy, Uday took him to Patna and made ransom calls to the family from there. Patna superintendent of police Naiyar H Khan said Uday's calls were traced to a riverine area on the outskirts of Patna. The cell phone calls had travelled through the Bakhtiarpur tower. The cell phone owner was located, but he had been lending his mobile to anyone who wanted to make a call for a payment." Uday was nabbed by chance when he came to that area again to visit a relative. The boy, a nephew of Secunderabad MP Anjan Kumar Yadav, was recovered after a few raids in the vicinity. "It's a Dasara gift for us," said Manikanta's father Raj Kumar. He plans to make a thanksgiving visit to Sabarimala with Manikanta in January. Manikanta is expected back in Hyderabad on Thursday afternoon.