December 10: A 24-hour-long drama involving the abduction of a 12-year-old from Santacruz came to an end when the kidnapped boy returned home today afternoon, only to shroud the entire episode in mystery.

Yusuf Shaikh, a resident of Navjeevan Welfare Society at Dattatraya Road in Santacruz west, was kidnapped by two unidentified persons yesterday at 3 pm when he was playing in his chawl.

After he returned from school yesterday afternoon at 3 pm, his mother Jahanarrah Shaikh said, Yusuf had some food and went out to play in the compound. "At 4 pm, I went outside to ask him to go for his tuition classes, but he was nowhere to be seen," she said.

Worried by his sudden disappearance, the entire family, including Yusuf's father Mohammed Naseem Shaikh, began looking for him in the chawl. But they couldn't find him. Nearly two hours after they had waited for him to come back, the Shaikhs received a phone call from a woman who asked them to pick up Yusuf from Shastri Nagar, Kurla. But she did not specify the address from which Yusuf was to be picked.

Surprisingly, the woman also did not demand money or anything else as a ransom, but just hung up. Three hours later, the Shaikhs received another call, but the sound was unclear and Jahanarrah could not hear anything.

Mohammed Shaikh then went to Santacruz police station and registered a case of kidnapping.

Police sources said following the complaint, they asked MTNL to tap all in-coming calls at the Shaikhs' residence so that they could trace the kidnappers, but the woman who had telephoned earlier did not ring up later.

When Yusuf came back home today, the answers he gave the Santacruz police confounded the cops. Yusuf told inspector Dattatray Dale, who is investigating the case, that the kidnappers left him at Santacuz railway station yesterday night, and he slept there. Dale said if this were true, the question of why Yusuf didn't return home in the morning remained unanswered.

Yusuf, who looked quite frightened, revealed that two persons tied his hands with ropes, gagged his mouth, took him to Kurla east by a rickshaw and left him after a few hours at Santacruz station. But Jahanarrah said as Yusuf was scared, he had been giving all kinds of answers, some of them even contradictory.

Senior police inspector Arvind Y Mahadik said, "The whole episode seems suspicious, and the reason behind the boy's detention has not been ascertained yet, but it may be a family dispute or old enmity." The Shaikhs have declined that they have been involved in any family dispute and ruled out any old rivalry as well. Yusuf's father works as a mechanic in Kuwait and is currently on leave.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.