Life in prison for seven who kidnapped toddler in 2014

A sessions court on Tuesday sentenced seven persons, including a woman, to life imprisonment for kidnapping a

three-year-old toddler of a Goregaon couple in 2014 for ransom of Rs 81 lakh.

Those sentenced are Ajit Apraj, Deepak Salve, Avinash Dethe, Ashok Dethe, Vijay Vadle, Sapan Chakravarti and Anita Salve. The abduction took place on January 17, 2014, when the full-time house help of the couple was present in their home with their child, Yug. The couple run an advertising agency. In her deposition before court, the help, Reshma Jadhav, told the court that a youth rang the bell around 7 pm that day and said there was a gift for Rahul Waradkar, her employer. She had opened the door to collect the parcel, when two other men entered. She said she was gagged and her hands and legs tied up. They had then entered the bedroom and taken away the sleeping child. She had later managed to release her

hands and make a phone call to her employer’s wife and inform her about the incident.

In a chit left in the house addressed to Waradkar, the kidnappers had given instructions to leave his phone number etched behind his car the following day. He did as told and had received a ransom demand of Rs 81 lakh on his phone number. The businessman paid up on

following instructions of the kidnappers. On January 23, he was asked to come to Hotel Star City in Goregaon to collect his ‘parcel’. A woman among the accused, Anita Salve, had left the child on the first floor of the building and fled. The Waradkars had found their child in a drowsy condition.