DU student held for kidnapping minor boy for ransom

New Delhi: A 19-year-old Delhi University girl student and her teenaged brother have been arrested for kidnapping a three-year-old son of their landlord in south Delhi to extract a hefty ransom of Rs 5 crore, police said on Friday.

Riya and her brother were arrested on Thursday night with the help of technical surveillance and the victim was safely rescued from their clutches from a room in Ghitorni area of the national capital, the police said.

"Riya, a first-year B.Com student of Delhi University, with the help of her teenaged brother, kidnapped the minor son of their landlord on Thursday evening when he was playing near his house in Ghitorni," Deputy Commissioner of Police Devender Arya said.

"They later sent a ransom message via cloned WhatsApp to victim's father Anuj to pay Rs 5 crore if he wanted to see his son alive. Anuj informed the local police, after which around 100 policemen were assigned to rescue the victim," Arya said.

During the negotiation between the victim's father and the kidnappers, the deal was finalised for Rs 48 lakh, but in the meantime, the police detected their location in Ghitroni through technical surveillance," the DCP said.

"During the interrogation, Riya revealed that she wanted to earn easy money, so hatched the plan to kidnap her landlord's son. She also hired a room in the same area to hide the victim. She used WhatsApp to evade her arrest. She had been staying as tenant for last couple of years in residence of Anuj," the officer said.