Differently abled man held for kidnapping girl

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, February 19

Call it the “skill” of a Kajheri resident, who has no legs, or “strange ways” of the UT police, he has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping a young girl.

Vijay Pal, who is in his mid-twenties and moves around using his hands, “even took away” the girl to Uttar Pradesh from Chandigarh after kidnapping her. The local police said they arrested him from UP yesterday and recovered the girl.

The physically challenged young man was today remanded in 14-day judicial custody at Burail Jail after being presented before a duty magistrate. The police have booked him under Sections 363 (kidnapping) and 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing a woman to compel her for marriage) of the IPC at the Sector 34 police station on a complaint of the girl’s mother, Nisha, who lives in a slum area in Zirakpur.

She complained to the police on February 17 that her daughter had gone to a dispensary from where the accused kidnapped her on February 15. The accused begs around the Sector 35 traffic lights while the girl sells balloons.     

Police officials said the two had a love affair and it was yet to be verified whether the girl was minor or not. “The girl’s mother claims she is a minor, but she has no record. We are yet to verify her age. The accused has been alleged to have induced her to flee after kidnapping her. The accused can easily move around and often travels between Chandigarh and UP. The girl is not interested in leaving him,” said acting SHO Ramesh Singh.

On the contrary, Vijay’s counsel Gagan Inder Singh said, “The accused is a beggar and member of a gang allegedly being operated by the woman complainant. He used to pay her from his earnings. However, of late, he stopped paying her after which she framed him in a kidnapping case.”