Indore (Madhya Pradesh): In a shocking incident, a four-year-old boy was kidnapped by the maid of a house in Banganga area, the police said on Friday. The maid, three days ago, on the pretext of going to the laundry, carried the child with her. That was the last time they were seen. The family searched for their child and the maid frantically but their efforts were in vain.
Banganga police station in charge, Rajendra Soni, said Arjun Singh Pawar, a resident of Shivakanth Nagar Main Road, lodged a complaint that since his wife was living separately, he had hired a maid named Varsha Kale for household chores 15 days ago. She was also employed by others for the same job in the locality by others.
On December 27, Arjun was at his work place and his 80-year-old mother and child, Chhotu, were at home.
After preparing the meal, Varsha informed Arjun’s mother that she was heading for the laundry in the area. Since she had befriended Arjun’s mom, the aged woman did not smell rat and allowed Varsha to take Chotu along.
After she didn’t return for long, Arjun’s mother informed her neighbours and son Arjun about the same.
A frantic Arjun rushed home and searched at possible places especially in the vicinity along with his neighbours but they failed to trace Varsha.
When asked, nobody in the area could answer in the affirmative whether they saw Varsha with the kid. They kept on their search operations for two days. On Thursday, they reported the matter to the police and lodged a complaint. A case under Section 363 of the IPC has been registered against the woman and a search has been initiated.
Mobile phone switched off
Varsha could not be reached through her mobile as it was switched off and hence even her tower location could not be traced. However, during the CCTV grab search, the police saw her at some places. The police are trying to piece together her “route” as per her visibility on the CCTV grabs. Police claimed that CCTVs installed in about 50 places were examined till the filing of the report.
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What is strange is that no one has still made a ransom call to Arjun and there’s no trace of both Varsha and the child. It is difficult to say if she did this job alone or had accomplices. However, such antics are not possible without aides. But then, the intriguing question is why no one has made a ransom call or is Varsha involved in a child trafficking racket. People hire domestic helps and drivers basically from the word of mouth of the neighbours and do not conduct background checks though police keep alerting people to gather all information from their help and seek their Aadhaar card and also inform the cops while recruiting maids and drivers. This incident should be an eyeopener for people who are easily hoodwinked by these crooks who befriend the residents and decamp resulting in a huge loss for families.
