Anant auto driver gives different version

NOIDA: Raising questions on the claims of police in the Anant Gupta kidnapping case, the driver of the autorickshaw in which the three-year-old boy had reached home, on Saturday claimed the abductors gave him the child at Sarita Vihar in South Delhi, five km from his residence.

Bhupinder Singh, claiming to have been kept at a police station in Noida overnight, told Zee TV that two men approached him at Sarita Vihar on Friday and gave him Rs 50 to drop Anant home, saying the child had lost his way.

They asked him to drop the boy at the address given on his school badge.

"They approached me at the CNG station near Apollo Hospital and I took the boy home," he claimed, raising doubts about the police claim that they took custody of the child in Kakod area on Noida-Bulandshahar border and a policeman accompanied him to his Sector 15 residence here.

Singh said the boy, who cried on the way, was not accompanied by anyone when he took him home.

He said the guard at the Gupta residence did not recognise the child and took him inside the house along with the boy.

He was called in and the whole family was elated to see the child. He was given sweets and something to eat.

Police took him to the Sector 63 police station here, where he was kept overnight and not allowed to make any phone calls, he said.

He said Anant's mother visited him in the police station and gave him a reward of Rs 1000.

Singh said he was let off by the police on Saturday.