KOLKATA: An 8-year-old boy and his 5-year-old sister, who had allegedly been abducted by some unidentified men from Kamarhati on the northern fringes of the city on Thursday evening, were rescued from Howrah early on Friday. The kidnappers, however, gave cops the slip.According to family sources, the siblings were rescued only after a bag containing Rs 12 lakh was handed over to the kidnappers near a bridge at Howrah’s Golabari.Mahasin Ali, a student of Class II and his sister, Class I student Ruban Banu had gone to attend a private coaching class at Chhota Maszid near their Graham Road home on Thursday evening.“My children came out of the coaching class around 7.45pm, when a youth in his early 30s stopped them. The youth showed them a photograph of their mother and said she was seriously ill. He told the siblings that he would take them to their mother. After seeing their mom’s photo, the siblings didn’t think twice. The youth then took him to the BT Road on a rickshaw and then hired a taxi,” Mohammad Hasan, the kids’ father, told TOI.Soon, the family members and neighbours started looking for the children and lodged a missing diary with Kamarhati outpost and then with Belghoria police station. It was around 9.30pm, when Hasan — a car driver by profession — reportedly received a ransom call from an unknown number. “They demanded Rs 15 lakh as ransom money. I requested the caller to release my children and said I did not have that much money. But he said that if I didn’t pay up, they would smuggle the two to Mumbai,” Hasan said.Then he started collecting money from his neighbours and the relatives. “Around 11.30pm, they called for second time and after some haggling, agreed to accept Rs 12 lakh.They allowed us to talk to my son and daughter. The cops asked us to tell the kidnappers that we will soon deliver the money to them. Around 1.30am, they asked us to come with the money to a bridge near Golabari. A police team followed us in another car,” Hasan added.According to Hasan, on Golabari bridge, “a youth brought my children to me and took the bag containing Rs 12 lakh,” he said. The kidnappers reportedly fled with the money. Ananda Roy, DCP, Zone II, Barrackpore commissionerate , said, “The matter is being probed.”

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