The Kolshewadi police went into a flurry of action on Wednesday, when an autorickshaw driver rushed into the police station with his cellphone stuck to his ear and claimed that his 15-year-old son’s kidnapper was at the other end.
According to the police, the complainant, Jitendra Patil, an autorickshaw driver said that he had received the kidnapper’s call at around 12.30 pm. “My life is ruined anyway, so I won’t hesitate in putting a bullet into your son. Wait for my next call,” was all the kidnapper said.
Meanwhile, Mr Patil’s son Akshay (15), who had gone to a nearby college to apply for admissions to Class 11 was not reachable. By the time the kidnapper called again, Mr Patil had rushed to the police station. He set his cellphone to speaker mode and let the officers at the police station listen to the kidnapper’s conversation. The kidnapper had called Mr Patil to the Siddharth Nagar area near the Kalyan railway station.
“Our official vehicles were out at the time and we didn’t want to waste any time in summoning them. We engaged several autorickshaws and rushed to the spot specified by the kidnapper,” said Jagdish Lohalkar, senior police inspector. When the police reached area, they saw some youth, standing by the side of the road. One of them, clearly surrounded and being held captive, was identified as Akshay.
On seeing the policemen, the boys started to flee. However, the police managed to nab two of them and they were taken to the police station along with Akshay. The accused were identified as Dinesh Jadhav (20) and Sagar Pandya (23). “Jadhav is a murder accused. He was arrested last year for killing a vegetable vendor in the heat of an argument near the Kalyan railway station, which explains his ‘my life is ruined’ statement. His brother Sushant used to study in the same school as Akshay,” said Mr Lohalkar.