On January 28, three days after the kidnapping of a 5-year-old Vivan, a ransom call was received by his father in a woman's voice. Terrified, Sunny Gupta, the child's father informed the police and immediate surveillance was mounted. However, no phone call could be traced. Senior officers told DNA on Monday that the accused were using snatched phones to make calls to the parents of the child and no phone was used twice.
Many other tactics used by the accused helped them give police a slip, a number of times. While the police were primarily looking for a woman accused, the kidnappers made sure that they make a video call to the child's parents only via WhatsApp, to keep the details encrypted, that helped them from being traced.
But, it was because of the stolen phones and after tracing calls, that locations of Madhya Pradesh and UP surfaced. This initially misled the teams probing the kidnapping.
Senior police officers also informed that the kidnapping was planned earlier so professionally that the child could only be kidnapped in the fourth attempt. "The accused had earlier made three attempts in which something or the other happened and they could not execute it," said RP Upadhyay, Special Commissioner of Police, Crime.
Upadhyay also said that the flat in which the child was kept had been taken on rent at least six months ago to avoid any suspicion. "They were financially not very well off and could not regularly pay the rent. They somehow managed and were awaiting the ransom amount to pay the entire sum," the Special Commissioner said, adding that even as all the three accused have been identified, including one of them who died in the encounter, the police still suspect the role of an insider who might have tipped off the kidnappers about the deal that the child's father had recently cracked and earned a sum of Rs 57 lakh.
"The kidnappers had made a ransom demand of Rs 60 lakh which is close to the amount Gupta had received. Role of an insider is still being ascertained," Upadhyay said.
