Heartache for India's new rich as brutal kidnappers target their children

Gangs of ransom-seekers are preying on well-off families. They know the police are ineffective and desperate parents will pay up, but even so snatched children often die
Yash Lakhotia, seven, and his sister Neha, now 12, two days before he was kidnapped and murdered.

The last picture that Yash Lakhotia's family have of him was taken at the shopping mall, the most middle-class of Indian destinations. It shows him smiling, with his arm around his big sister, Neha. Both are wearing smart western clothes, looking the epitome of the country's new, upwardly mobile generation.

But it was a look that cost Yash his life. Two days after the photograph was taken, a car drew up outside the seven-year-old's school as he was leaving. Yash must have assumed that the man inside had been sent by his father to collect him. He got in, the door closed, and he was gone.

Neighbours found his body three days later, dumped among bushes near the waterfront in Howrah, Kolkata's twin city. He was just one more victim of India's burgeoning kidnap industry.

As the country's economy booms and millions make the leap from poverty to the ranks of the new middle class, there has been a corresponding surge in kidnapping for ransom as those who feel left behind seek a share of the spoils.

Insurers rank India as the fifth most dangerous country in the world for kidnapping, with one US firm warning last month that westerners should now also consider themselves targets.

In May, India's National Human Rights Commission estimated that 60,000 children go missing nationwide every year; fewer than a third are found. Some are taken to work in factories or end up as beggars, but figures from Delhi police show that kidnap for ransom is on the rise. In 2008, there were 1,233 cases in the national capital; by last year that had soared to 2,975. In the first three months of 2011, 802 cases were registered.

With the police often slow to react and wealthy parents eager to pay, a kidnap should be a quick and simple money-spinner. Instead it is a lottery, because the perpetrators frequently panic and kill their captives – a cruel twist that the Lakhotias found out the hard way.

"I used to try to scare him, to make him laugh," said Anil Lakhotia, Yash's father, as he wept in a cafe around the corner from his busy sweetshop. His shoulders shaking, face buried in his hands, he added: "I can't imagine how scared he was when it happened to him, and I was not there for him. Everyone wants to protect their child, but we were helpless. You can't protect them all the time. You have to let them go out; you have to let them go to school, don't you?"

Anil crossed the river from Kolkata to set himself up in business 24 years ago. As his shop's reputation grew, so did the family's wealth. And so did the envy of those who were not so successful.

One day in 2009, Yash left the house for school at 7am, getting a lift in the usual shared taxi. He should have been picked up at 2pm, but he never arrived home. Anil rang the car company, who told him someone had already picked the boy up by the time their driver had arrived.

"I suddenly realised it was a case of kidnapping," said Anil, 41. "I thought we would just have to pay the ransom and get him back. Money means a lot to us, but at that point I was ready to sell my house, everything."

Inside the house, everyone was crying. Yash's sister, Neha, now 12, arrived back from school and walked in to find the place in turmoil.

Anil raced to the school, then to the nearby Balli police station, where his distress was met with a shrug. "[The officer] was lazy, a typical cop. He was reluctant to lodge a complaint. He said the boy must have wandered off somewhere."

With night falling, the family went to pray, not just at their regular Hindu temple but also at the local mosque, desperate for any help they could find. Long into the night, Anil scoured the streets. Eventually, he had to admit defeat. "He had a phone and my number. He would have called if he was just lost," Anil said.

By the next morning the police had a suspect, a well-known local criminal. They circulated his picture, but it was a mistake. The kidnappers panicked. Neighbours found Yash's body lying in bushes near the shore. He was in his school uniform, with a mark on his neck where he had been strangled, and dried blood around his nose.

"He was only seven-and-a-half," said Anil. "Every father has dreamed that his son will grow up and shoulder the responsibilities and take charge of things. But I am completely lost, my dreams are shattered. I have no more plans to expand my business, because who would it be for?"

What is so awful about the Lakhotias' story is not that it happened to one little boy; it is that it happens all the time. There were two cases in Delhi in December, accompanied by ransom demands of £20,000 and £1,300. Both boys were killed. The next month, there was another one in the capital, with the boy being killed because his father would not pay the £545 ransom.

Even those who pay up have no guarantee of seeing their children again. In December, five-year-old Khushpreet Singh Khushi was kidnapped near Chandigarh. His parents paid 400,000 rupees (£5,455) as a ransom, yet his body was recovered on 5 January this year.

Given kidnappings' new ubiquity, it takes a particularly gruesome case to attract national attention. The kidnap and murder last October of a young brother and sister, Rithik and Muskaan Jain, in the southern city of Coimbatore, certainly fitted that bill.

The 10-year-old girl was found first, her seven-year-old brother a little later. The kidnappers had lost their nerve when they started crying and drowned them in a canal. News of the deaths shocked the city. There were public displays of anger and despair. Mourning posters were pasted up in the streets around the family home, featuring pictures of the children and the traditional symbol of a teardrop falling from an eye.

It did not take the police long to catch up with the main suspect, Mohana Krishnan. After they had questioned him, they did what the police in India often do when faced with a public outcry: they killed him. Mohana was driven out into the countryside before dawn. At around 5.30am, according to the police account, he snatched a pistol from one of the accompanying officers and opened fire. He was promptly shot dead.

As news of the killing spread, people came out on to the streets to celebrate, setting off firecrackers, handing out sweets. Only the children's headmaster seemed unmoved. "Why should I feel happy?" he asked. "Loss is loss, we're not going to get the children back."

Sometimes, India's kidnapping cases have happy endings. In April, Delhi let out a collective sigh of relief when 18-month-old Ishaan Singh was rescued from a gang hoping to secure a 20 million rupees (£270,000) ransom from his businessman father.

However, for too many parents, all that is left of their children are memories. Anita Lakhotia doubts that she will ever get real justice. Yash's death nearly destroyed her. The 35-year-old was pregnant at the time and when she gave birth a few months later she had convinced herself that the infant would be Yash reborn. When she realised she had given birth to a girl, she collapsed. It was weeks before she left hospital, depression gnawing away at her.

Slowly she recovered, but she is still fragile. In the smart flat into which the Lakhotias moved about six months ago, she sits on a small stool in front of the picture of Yash that hangs alone on the wall. The flat is behind heavy security gates; the parents are determined to protect their remaining children. Anita spends most of her time looking after her little girl, Palak, now 18 months old.

"I don't want to recall it any more," she said. "My younger daughter resembles him and, to me, it is a bit like having Yash back. But still I can't forget him."

She searched for the words to describe what she would say to the kidnappers if she could. "Why have you done this? Yash was just a kid and you have spoiled our entire life and ended his. What has anyone gained from it?"


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