Darjeeling Police Rescue Woman, Child from Kidnapping Bid

DEEP GAZMER, EOI, DARJEELING, MARCH 6, 2025 :  A housewife and her three-year-old daughter, residents of the Darjeeling hills, have been rescued by the Darjeeling Police from a possible kidnapping attempt. On February 11, a complaint was lodged by the husband of the missing woman at the Sadar Police Station.

"On February 11, the husband had filed a complaint that his wife was missing along with their daughter. We immediately lodged a case and started an investigation. We utilized our technical and local intelligence to locate them," a senior police official said.

Investigation revealed that the woman was in contact with a person in Mumbai for the last three months. A resident of Sopara, a slum area in Mumbai, he had first gone to Delhi and then to Siliguri, the police official said. Apparently, the day the woman went missing her location was tracked to Siliguri.

"We found that on February 11, the day the woman went missing, her mobile phone location was logged at the Tenzing Norgay bus terminus at Siliguri. The phone was then switched off and the SIM card destroyed," the officer said.

According to the police official, the man had taken the woman and her daughter to Muzaffarpur, where they stayed for three to four days, and then moved to Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Surat before heading to Mumbai.

"Our team was constantly tracking them. When they finally settled in Mumbai, we then made our move. Our team reached Mumbai and held the man and rescued the woman and her child on March 4 and brought them back to Darjeeling," the officer said.

A case was instituted against the man. The police said the accused had lured the woman, which was a form of kidnapping.

"The investigation is in progress, but initial findings suggest that the accused had enticed the woman in some form or the other. This amounts to kidnapping," the official said.

He said the accused and the complainant were acquainted with each other. "We discovered that, earlier, the complainant and the accused had worked together as chefs in a restaurant in Bhopal. As a result, the accused got to know about the woman and then from there everything started," the officer said.