A Chhattisgarh CRPF assistant sub-inspector’s minor son, kidnapped from Assam, escaped and landed up in Ranchi late on Monday night in what looks like a thriller.

The 17-year-old student was abducted from Udharband in Cachar district of Assam on January 18 evening while on his way to his tuition class to Silchar. Though the motive and the events of the next couple of days are not clear, the Class XII boy managed to escape from his captors “from a cottage hideout in a forest” and reached Gonda thana in the heart of Ranchi around 10.30pm on Monday.

The boy, who had several injury marks on his body, could not specify the location from where he escaped.

His father Sajal Kumar is an ASI in CRPF currently posted in Chhattisgarh capital Raipur.

Gonda police said they were now probing who could have kidnapped the boy and why.

Gonda OC Sapan Kumar Mahatha said the boy was taken to Ranchi Sadar Hospital for first-aid and kept comfortably at the thana. “When the boy said he was abducted from Cachar, we checked his statement from the thana concerned (Udharband) and found a case of his abduction already registered there. So we fully co-operated with him,” OC Mahatha said.

The OC said the boy told them he was sitting in an auto bound for Silchar with three other men around 8am on January 18 when he was made to inhale something and he passed out. When he regained his senses at a forest cottage on Monday, he managed to escape from a window by opening a screw with a nail cutter he had on him to reach the road after half-an-hour’s run, the OC said, again quoting the boy. “He says he took a lift from a car and reached Ranchi in two-and-half-hours. He asked an auto-rickshaw to drop him to the nearest police station. The driver dropped him here (at Gonda thana),” Mahatha said.

The boy, who spoke a mix of Bengali and Hindi, told this paper that on the days he was dazed, twice he felt he was in a car, but his captors injected drugs on him.

The OC said the boy’s parents had reached Calcutta and were on their way to Ranchi. “We are waiting for the parents. The boy is terrified. Once parents come, they will talk to him and more pieces of the puzzle will fall in place.”

The Telegraph