15-year-old boy scripts kidnapping drama in Mumbai

A 15-year-old schoolboy, who went missing from Chennai on June 14, was found at CST station the next day. T Samrat Gerold, a Std X student, was in uniform and was carrying a school bag.

According to the CST railway police, Samrat, a student of Kamraj Matriculation High School at Minjur, had run away from home as he was upset with his mother, Janesin Rani, because she yelled at him for not paying attention to his studies.

Samrat’s father is an ex-serviceman and his mother is a headmistress in a local English school in Chennai.

When Samrat did not return from school on June 14, his parents contacted school authorities, friends and relatives to know his whereabouts. When they could not locate him, they lodged a complaint at the Minjur police station the same night.

The police said that around 2.30pm on June 15, Samrat contacted his mother on her cellphone from a PCO booth at the CST railway station and told her that he was in Mumbai.

When she asked him how he came there, he cooked up a story.  Samrat said while he was waiting for the school bus around 7.15am, an Omni van halted before him. He said two men jumped out of the van and bundled him inside the car and zoomed away. Samrat  also said he escaped when the van stopped at a railway crossing near Rennigunta station. He said he ran towards the station and boarded a train to Mumbai.

Senior inspector Dilip Mane of the CST railway police station said, “A top police officer called us to trace a boy at CST. We also got his physical description and the clothes he was wearing. We sent a team of six policemen to the station. After 20 minutes, we found him near a book stall and brought him to the police station. His parents were informed. The boy also spoke to his mother.”