Three-year-old Md Siddik was kidnapped 23 days ago from Dhaka Udyan area of Mohammadpur in the capital.

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-2 members conducted operations in Dhaka and Gopalganj and rescued the child on Thursday. Five persons have been arrested in this case.

Details about the case were presented at a press conference held at RAB’s media centre in the capital’s Karwan Bazar on Friday afternoon.

It was said at the press conference that the child Siddik was playing with his eight-year-old sister Humayra beside their house in Mohammadpur’s Dhaka Udyan area on the afternoon of 26 April.

There were six or seven more children playing with them. A man them all chocolates. Then he cunningly left the place along with Siddik.

RAB-2 commander, additional deputy inspector general Anwar Hossain Khan, said that from the CCTV footage, intelligence information and the help of technology, they confirmed that the kidnapper was a certain Pijush Kanti Pal, 29.

Pijush and his wife Riddhita Pal, 25, sold the child for Tk 200,000 (Tk 2 lakh) to a childless couple (Pallab Kanti Biswas, 52, and Baby Sarkar, 46) in Gopalganj. A man named Sujan Sutar, 32 mediated the deal.

These five people, involved with the child being kidnapped and sold, have been arrested.

Child sold over Facebook

RAB says Pijish Kanti Pal used to work in a spa while studying at a private university. He met Riddhita Pal there and they got married in 2020. Pijush Kanti became involved with human trafficking while working at the spa.

Last year, a case of human trafficking had been filed against him with Banani police station. He got out on bail after a few days of being arrested.

This couple had put up an ad for ‘child adoption’ in a Facebook group named ‘Shonatoni Udyokta Forum (SUF)’. Riddhita Pal got connected with Sujan Sutar on this group and expressed that she was interested in putting children up for adoption in exchange of money.

RAB-2 commander Anwar Hossain Khan said that Pijush’s wife Riddhita Pal had sent the photo of her own son to Sujan Sutar saying, “This boy will be given up for adoption, see if you like him or not.”

The boy was introduced as the child of Riddhita’s domestic help. Riddhita also said that the child will be given up for ‘adoption in exchange of money’ as the husband of that domestic help had left her.

After both parties reached an agreement, Pijush travelled to Udyan in Dhaka from his home in Savar on the afternoon of 26 April. Some children were playing there.

He gave them chocolates and kidnapped the three-year-old boy, Siddik. Later that afternoon, the Pijush-Riddhita couple came to Agargaon in the capital and sold the child to Sujan for Tk 200,000.

RAB said during interrogation, Sujan revealed that his wife’s elder sister Baby Sarkar and her husband Pallab Kanti Biswas were childless. They needed a child.

Sujan took the child to Baby Sarkar and Pallab Kanti’s house in Gopalganj right on the night of 26 April.