Girl rescued after week-long kidnap drama

By Our Staff Reporter

KURNOOL, JULY 10. The week- long kidnap drama ended on a happy note with the police arresting the kidnapper and rescuing the four-year-old girl, Srikirthi, today. The girl was kidnapped from her school, Srilakshmi English Medium School here on July 3. After keeping the girl in his custody for a week, the kidnapper, identified as Liyakat Ali Khan, 30, demanded Rs. 75 lakhs for the safe release of the girl. He sent the message through a letter which was delivered at the house of the tutor of the family yesterday.

In the letter, he instructed the family to leave an air bag containing the cash inside a culvert near All India Radio station on the outskirts of the town. The police laid the trap and posted constables disguised as labourers. The kidnapper came to the designated spot an hour before and surveyed the area but failed to identify the policemen. Later, the father of the girl, Mr. Somisetty Venkat Prasad, placed the bag inside the culvert, which was collected by the kidnapper around noon. The policemen in disguise pounced and overpowered him.

After interrogation, the kidnapper led the police to an isolated house at Balaji Nagar near Stantonpuram on the outskirts of the town where the girl was detained. The girl was restored to her parents around 3.00 p.m. Addressing a press conference in the evening, the Additional Superintendent of Police, Mr. J. Prabhakar Rao, and the Deputy SP, Mr. V. Satyanarayana, said the kidnapper posted two letters earlier, which were vague and gave no clues. Except that the kidnap was done for money, no details were given.

The last letter, which was lengthy and delivered yesterday, gave enough details for the police to act. The kidnapper asked a boy to drop the letter in the house of Ganesh, who was the tutor for the victim and her sister so that the message could reach the family. He threatened serious harm to the girl if they tried to involve the police or tried to act smart. He demanded Rs. 75 lakhs and asked the parents to fill the air bag with currency of Rs. 500 and Rs. 100 denomination.

A postgraduate in Hindi, the kidnapper, Liyakat Ali Khan, told reporters in the Control Room that he had decided to kidnap the baby for money. He is said to have fed the baby with chocolates, biscuits and snacks. When the police went to the place, she was found locked in the toilet backside the house.

Recalling the abduction, he said after collecting the baby from the school on the pretext of giving medicine, he walked to the bus stand and stopped a while at a general store to buy chocolates mainly to avoid the scooterist who followed him on the instruction of the Aaya of the school. Immediately he rushed to a bus, which was about to start and boarded it. However, he got off the bus after traveling a furlong as the baby started crying.

The kidnapper, an organiser of a private tutorial, was held a few months ago on the charge of duping students.

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