Sonu Naik, a marble setter from Odisha, was arrested in Bhubaneswar for kidnapping a four-year-old boy. He intended to blackmail the child’s mother into marrying him after she rejected his proposal.

BHUBANESWAR: A Bengaluru-based marble setter from Odisha’s Kandhamal district was on Wednesday arrested in Bhubaneswar for devising a bizarre plot where he allegedly kidnapped a four-year-old boy to compel his mother to leave her husband and marry him instead.According to police sources, his intention was to use the child as leverage to force the 26-year-old woman into marrying him. The child has been safely rescued and reunited with his family.The incident took place in the Saheed Nagar locality of Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. The accused, Sonu Naik (25), who knew the victim’s family, visited their residence in the afternoon and expressed his feelings to the boy’s mother while her husband was away at his private sector job.Upon the woman’s rejection, Naik allegedly initiated an argument and threatened serious repercussions if she refused his marriage proposal.Police officials stated that the accused thought having custody of the child would force the mother to leave her marriage and accept his proposal. “The perpetrator’s misguided logic was that the woman would automatically choose to be with him if he had her son in his possession,” a police source said.The Saheed Nagar police began their investigation after receiving the woman’s complaint. Tracking the accused proved challenging as the woman lacked his contact information.The woman had previously encountered the accused while visiting her sister in Bengaluru. She had travelled there last year following marital discord and stayed with her sister for several months before recently returning to Bhubaneswar to reconcile with her husband.“Safe rescue of the child was our top priority. Apprehending threat to the child’s life, we activated our full resources and involved multiple police stations. We also activated our basti (slum) networks and succeeded to trace the kidnapper and hostage in a slum. The child was safely rescued,” commissioner of police S Dev Datta Singh said.According to police sources, Naik, who is originally from Kandhamal district, has been working under a construction contractor in Bengaluru for the last ten years.