Girl fakes own abduction

A 16-year-old girl from Kalyan who faked her own kidnapping to enjoy a night out at her 19-year-old male friend’s place in Dombivali was tracked down by the police and handed over to her parents. The Mahatma Phule police traced the girl to Dombivali railway station and arrested the boy, who is an engineer, on charges of kidnapping.

According to the police, the girl is a resident of Kalyan and a class 10 student, while the accused is an engineering student residing in Dombivali.

The police said that the girl had left her residence on Tuesday at around 1:30 pm claiming she would return after mending her school bag, which was torn. Instead, she boarded a local train from Vitthalwadi railway station and got down at Dombivali station and went to the residence of her male friend. When she didn’t return home after 10 pm, the girl’s parents and elder brother started contacting her mobile number and her friends, but did not get a positive answer from any one of them, said a senior police officer from Kalyan. They finally sent a message to the girl’s mobile, asking her to call back immediately. However, they received a reply that said the girl had been kidnapped and the kidnappers were “going to sell her,” the officer said.

The parents immediately approached the Mahatma Phule police station in Kalyan and registered a case under Section 363 (punishment for kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code. Sanjay Jadhav, deputy commissioner of police, formed two teams to probe the case. “When we started the investigation, our first doubt was how a kidnapper could sent message from the victim’s mobile phone. We then started tracing her mobile number,” said a police officer.

The officer added that on Wednesday, the girl’s parents received another text message from the girl’s mobile phone saying she had escaped from the kidnapper and was on her way back home. “We traced her location when she was at Dombivali railway station. We took custody of her and handed her over to her family on Wednesday night,” added the officer, who did not want to be named.

The police on interrogating the girl, found out she had faked her kidnapping just to enjoy a night out at her male friend’s place.

The police said the girl had sent her parents the text messages that were purportedly sent by her kidnapper. The boy was later released on bail.