Third call helped nail abductors

Mumbai police and UP special task force worked in sync to trace the 5 kidnappers;u00a0a call made on April 18 was the final giveaway to their hideout in a UP villageu00a0

The extensive search mission mounted by the Mumbai police to trace Kandivli's Karnit Shah finally ended a fortnight after his abduction, with their commendably coordinated effort with the UP police to hunt down the five kidnappers. The way cops handled the unfolding sequence of events is an exemplary case study.



A lot of the tracking was done with the help of electronic surveillance. Investigators stumbled upon the first lead on April 15 when a ransom call was made from a PCO in Madh Island in Malad (West). A team of police officers tracked the public phone booth only to be told that numerous callers used it during the day and that it would be very difficult to narrow down on the suspect. As such, the police could not make much headway.

However, what the kidnappers did not realise was that Karnit's father Anand's telephone numbers were kept under observation, and all the calls were being recorded by the police. On April 17, there was another call to Shah's phone. This time it was traced to a PCO in Chiplun, about 240 km from Mumbai. Investigators soon learnt that the call was diverted to throw the cops on a wild goose chase. However, the police was not taken in by the theory.

How the cops traced karnit
6.30 pm on April 6: Sandeep Apsare and Sameer Khan kidnapped Karnit from a play ground in Kandivli. The child was handed over to Bhind
1 am on April 7:u00a0The trio take the child to Nashik by a bus
2 pm on April 7: At Nashik railway station they board a train for Allahabad
6 am on April 9: Bhind and the child arrive at Allahabadu00a0
Noon on April 9: Bhind takes a local bus to Handia village, 100 km from Allahabad. They live in the village
2.20 am on April 20: UPSTF and Mumbai police close in on Handia village. Bhind and Karnit found


Graphic/Dharmesh Rathod

Pay dirt
It was the call for ransom the following day that helped cops close in on the five kidnappers and rescue the boy. On April 18, Shah received the third call from a mobile issued by a service provider from the city. The name on the provider's list was given as Sohanlal Gupta. A team of officers from the squad formed by Mumbai Commissioner of Police Arup Patnaik traced Gupta to a shop called Designer Cake Shop in Malad. He was subjected to intense interrogation. Gupta gave the names of his associate as Samir Khan and Sandeep Apsare.

The duo admitted to having lifted Karnit and handed him over to one Surjit Bhind. Though they confessed they had abducted the child from Kandivli, they were unaware of his whereabouts at that time, they said. The cops arrested the three men, along with another aide of Gupta's, whose name is not known yet.

UP cops step in
Bhind, meanwhile, had been calling up Gupta to inquire about the developments in Mumbai, unaware that Gupta's phone had been tapped by the Mumbai police. Cops traced his number and passed it on to the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UPSTF), which began a parallel search for Karnit. Over the next day, on April 19, city cops had also tracked, through mobile towers, the route Bhind took to run out of the city -- from Kandivli to Nasik and onward to Allahabad in UP, revealed Inspector Rakesh Sharma of Mumbai police.

Bhind's last call was traced to his village in Handia, about 100 km from Allahabad. His sister's husband stayed in the village where the boy and his abductor had been hiding. Investigations revealed that Bhind had convinced the villagers that Karnit was the orphaned son of a relative, and that it was his responsibility now to look after the child. His relatives allowed the child to stay with him in the village. They did not suspect the sinister plot, until a team of UPSTF and Mumbai police officials raided the village in the wee hours of Wednesday.

"He told his relatives that Karnit was his friend's child and had no one to look after him; so he had to take care of him for a few days until the boys relatives took his custody. His brother-in-law allowed him to stay in a hut close to his house for over 10 days," said UPSTF Senior Inspector Avinash Mishra. The police arrested Bhind, along with all four of his accomplices, and Karnit was flown back home at about 5 pm yesterday.

Coptalk
Said Mishra of UPSTF, "On Monday, Mumbai police gave us a number, saying that they were searching for the accused who had kidnapped Karnit. On Tuesday, we traced the number to Handia. We questioned villagers, and surrounded the village after a recce. When the Mumbai police arrived, we carried out a joint raid. It was late in the night that we found the kidnapper and the child sleeping in a remote hut in the forest."

Arup Patnaik, Mumbai Commissioner of Police said, "We thank the UP STF for their support. The accused was hiding in a jungle we couldn't have reached without their help. They really helped our officers trace the kidnapper and rescue the boy." Assistant Police Inspector Anand Bhoir of the Dahisar police, chosen by the commissioner to be part of the search team, said, "The STF was of great help. It was a jungle area and we hardly knew anyone there. It would have not been possible for us to get to them without the STF."