Kollam: Abigel Sara Reji, the six-year-old girl who was abducted by a gang on Monday evening will reunite with her family soon after nearly 21 hours-long separation. She met her mother and brother through a video call from the AR police camp. In the visuals, Abigel was seen sitting on her father's lap and smiling at her family members in the video call.
Police found the child from Kollam Ashram ground around 1.40 pm on Tuesday. She was immediately taken to the AR camp where doctors examined her and confirmed that she was healthy. According to reports, a woman found the girl on the Ashram ground and informed police.
An eyewitness told the media that a young woman in a salwar dropped the girl off the Ashram premises.
It is learnt that the two men in a car quarrelled with a security guard of the income tax department's quarters demanding to open the gate. The residents suspect that the two men were the abductors.
Meanwhile, sources close to police hinted that there is no clue about the gang who abducted the girl from Oyoor here on Monday evening.
The kidnappers, suspected to be four in number including a woman, came in a white car and abducted the girl when she was on her way to tuition classes along with her eight-year-old brother, according to the boy's statement to the police. When the boy tried to stop the abductors, they pushed him aside and whisked the girl away in the car, an officer from the Pooyappally police station had said on Monday. The boy suffered injuries to his knees while trying to save his sister, police had said. The incident occurred on Monday between 4 pm and 4.30 pm, according to the police.
According to visuals shown on television news channels, two ransom calls were allegedly made by the kidnappers. Initially, they demanded Rs 5 lakh and then later doubled the figure. In the audio recording of the purported second ransom call shown on TV channels, the kidnappers could be heard saying that the girl is safe and unharmed and will be returned on Tuesday morning on a payment of Rs 10 lakh.
The kidnappers had also warned the parents not to inform the police. Prior to that, a ransom call demanding Rs 5 lakh was received by the parents a few hours after the kidnapping. Police had intensified the search for the girl, with vehicles being checked on all major and minor roads in the southern districts of Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Thiruvananthapuram. Visuals showed police officers checking vehicles, especially white-coloured ones, on the roads. The parents of the children are nurses working in two separate private hospitals.
(With PTI inputs)
