Three youths were sentenced to life for kidnapping a six-year-old child for ransom with a court here saying that there has been a rise in the city of cases of abduction and exploitation of kids for trafficking and organ trade.
Holding Dal Chand, Raj Kishore and Manish Chand guilty, the court observed that using a helpless child as an instrument to extort money was the worst kind of offence.
"In the recent past, Delhi has experienced a spurt in incidents of kidnapping and exploitation of children belonging to poor families for ransom, trafficking, beggary and organ trade.
"Kidnapping is an offence against society and the courts cannot shut their eyes (and) permit the guilty to get away with lighter punishments," Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau said.
She also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on each of the convicted trio.
The court ruled that the prosecution had proved the accused had kidnapped the child from Azadpur here and thereafter confined him to Etawah at Manish's house.
The trio had then made ransom calls to the victim's father, Dharambir, and threatened to kill his son if he failed to give them Rs 20 lakh, the court said.
The boy was kidnapped by the three accused and a juvenile (facing trial in juvenile justice board) on July 11, 2011.
Dal Chand, who was a neighbour, took the boy away with him on some pretext while he was at play outside his house.
A missing complaint was lodged and two days later, the boy's father received the ransom call, police said.
After tracking the call details, a police team reached Etawah and rescued the child and arrested the trio.
