New Delhi, June 19 (IANS) The Railway Unit of Delhi Police dismantled a child trafficking network with the arrest of eight accused, including four women, and the rescue of an infant kidnapped last month from the waiting hall of New Delhi Railway Station, said an official on Friday.

The abduction of the one-and-a-half-year-old Kartik from the railway station was reported on May 24, around 6.30 pm, by his mother, Chanda Kumari, 26, wife of Dinesh, resident of Ghaziabad, UP, aged about 26 years, who had been living separately from her husband for the last year, the police said.

Considering the sensitivity of the case, the Railway Unit of Delhi Police immediately launched an investigation and formed a specialised team to trace the missing infant and apprehend the culprits, the police statement said.

The persistent and multi-layered investigation conducted by the Railway Unit of Delhi Police, including CCTV surveillance, public outreach, digital forensics and coordinated raids, ultimately led to the busting of a child trafficking syndicate.

The police carried out simultaneous raids at different locations and successfully arrested the following accused: Shiva alias Gaurav from Haridwar; Dharmender from Muzaffarnagar; Akil from Amroha; Preeti Sharma from Muzaffarnagar; Pooja from Jaipur; Arti from Badayun; Vishal from Gurugram, and Jiya from Chandigarh.

The investigation by the police team led by Inspector Vishwanath Paswan, SHO/NDRS, under the supervision of Rajesh Kumar, ACP/Railways, and ACP Sanjay Bhardwaj, established the sequence of events using CCTV footage from the day of the crime, said a police statement.

The police said an analysis of CCTV footage revealed that three people had taken Kartik away. The suspects were seen in the CCTV footage of the railway station’s parking area on the Ajmeri Gate side.

After exiting the railway station, they were seen travelling in a battery-operated rickshaw. The battery-rickshaw driver stated that the three persons, along with the child, got down at Mori Gate, Delhi. Thereafter, they boarded an auto-rickshaw and travelled to Shastri Park, the police said.

From Shastri Park, they took another auto-rickshaw to Kasim Vihar, Ghaziabad. Subsequently, they again travelled towards Shastri Park in an auto-rickshaw, the police said.

However, beyond Shastri Park, no further CCTV footage of the suspects could be traced. Later, posters containing photographs of the kidnapped child and the suspected kidnappers were circulated and pasted at Haridwar, Kasim Vihar and various locations in Delhi, the police said.

Meanwhile, information was received from Haridwar that a girl child had been kidnapped there and that the faces of the suspected kidnappers matched those involved in the kidnapping of the boy from New Delhi Railway Station, the police said.

The subsequent multi-layered investigation conducted by the Railway Unit of Delhi Police, including CCTV surveillance, public outreach, digital forensics and coordinated raids, ultimately led to the busting of a child trafficking syndicate.

The police conducted simultaneous raids at multiple locations and arrested the eight accused, spread across four states.

–IANS

rch/dan