A nine-year-old girl was abducted on her way to school and her driver was murdered by kidnappers in Andhra Pradesh's Vijayawada city this morning, police said.
The girl, daughter of a hotel owner in Vijayawada, was going to school along with her brother in a car when three unidentified men threw stones on the vehicle after it reached BRTS Road near Satyanaraynpuram, a senior police officer said.
"Three bike-borne men threw stones on the car and when the driver, Lakshman, got down to check what was wrong, they attacked him and later stabbed him with knives," Vijayawada police commissioner KV Rajendranath Reddy said over the phone.
The trio then got inside the car and asked the boy to get down and drove away the vehicle with the girl, he said. An injured Lakshman later succumbed to injuries.
A massive search was immediately launched and the car was found abandoned near a village in Tadepally mandal of neighbouring Guntur district, Reddy said.
"A manhunt has been launched to nab the kidnappers and special teams were formed to rescue the girl. The Guntur district police has also been alerted about the incident," Reddy said, adding further investigations were on.
