The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Missing children: two held on kidnap charges

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 03, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Missing children: two held on kidnap charges

Staff Reporter

Accused forged documents to put them up for adoption: police

CHENNAI: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) police on Thursday arrested two persons on charges of kidnapping minor children.

Police identified the two as K. Raghupathy (66), founder of Tiruvalluvar Gurukulam, Saidapet, an NGO involved in obtaining jobs for destitute women as domestic helpers, and V. Thangavelu (61) of the Madras Social Service Guild, Nedungundram, Vandalur.

Augustine Daniel, Assistant Commissioner of Police, CCB, said Bhanu, a pavement dweller of Pulianthope, filed a habeas corpus petition in the High Court last year, in which she said that two of her children were admitted to Tiruvalluvar Gurukulam in 1992.

When she went there some years later and asked for her children, Raghupathy denied he had taken in her children. Following this, she moved the court, which directed the police to trace her children.

Mr. Daniel said investigations revealed that the children, who were left in the care of Tiruvalluvar Gurukulam, were sent to the Madras Social Service Guild in Nedungundram.

They were subsequently put up for adoption, for which Raghupathy allegedly used a surrender deed, bearing the forged signature of Bhanu.

Mr. Daniel said the forged surrender deed had been seized. The children, who had been adopted by an American national, would be traced and brought back to India, he said.

Cases had been filed against Raghupathy and Thangavelu under Sections 344 (wrongfully confining for 10 or more days), 363A (kidnapping or obtaining the custody of a minor in order that such minor may be employed or used for purposes of begging) and 506 (2) (criminal intimidation).

Investigations are continuing.

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