Unidentified persons on Friday kidnapped a Patna boy on his way to school.
Akash Pandey, a class 7 student living in Raja Bazaar's Chanakyapuri, was on his way to the DAV school at Shastri Nagar when three persons in a green car intercepted him, bundled him into the vehicle and sped away, eyewitnesses said.
The boy was on his bicycle when the kidnappers intercepted him near the J D Women's college.
Some people who were dropping their wards chased the van, but could not catch up with the vehicle.
According to eyewitnesses, the green coloured car bore the registration number BR 1M 9612. The police, however, suspect that the number might be fake.
The area from where the kidnapping took place in considered to be a VIP locality. Former Bihar chief minister Jaganath Mishra resides there and the DAV school in which Aakash studied is located there.
Soon after getting information of abduction, the police began trying to locate the vehicle. They sealed all exit routes from the state capital and began searching all vehicles.
Meanwhile, Aakash's father Yogendra Pandey said he had not received any call for ransom from the abductors. Being a salaried person he was not even in a position to satisfy ransom demands, he said. Pandey also ruled out personal enmity or rivalry.
He said Aakash was not keeping well for the past few days and this was the first day he left for school after recovering.
Akash's kidnapping comes five days after the body of Roshan, a class 8 student of the Patna Central School, was found in Kankarbagh locality of the state capital on August 6, three days after he was allegedly abducted by his friends.
Within the past one year, about 14 school students had been abducted from the state capital.
As per the reports compiled by the state authorities, the most abductions had taken place in Patna. On several occasions the high court too had taken suo moto notice of the kidnappings and had directed the state government to initiate measures.
The state government had chalked out strategies to provide security cover to the school children and mobile police teams patrolled the school areas.
Police personnel were also deployed at the gates of all most all schools and the concerned police stations were entrusted with the responsibilities for the security of the students in their jurisdiction.
