Delhi: Korean tourists robbed, abducted boy killed

Two foreigners thought they had been snatched, a kidnapped boy was found dead while another boy was abducted though he was rescued six hours later. Welcome to the 'Kidnap Capital'. The two South Korean women still don't believe they are alive to tell the tale. Lee Jung Yi (40) and daughter Hardason (22) went through hell after arriving in New Delhi on Tuesday night when a man, to their horror, got into their taxi, held a gun to them and drove off. They thought they had been abducted and braced for the worst.

 
 The Koreans who were robbed
The man asked the driver to stop the car in an orchard at a deserted patch on the Delhi-Meerut bypass road, where he and three others tailing the car robbed the motherdaughter of their cash. The assailants fled without harming them. Worst could have happened to them. They might have been murdered or raped, like Dawn Emilie Griggs. In 2004, the 59- year- old Australian was murdered outside the city airport within hours of her arrival by the driver of the taxi she had hired.
After arriving at the city airport at 3.15am on Tuesday, Lee Jung and Hardason set off for Haridwar in a taxi. Hardason is pursuing BA in yoga from Dev Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, run by Shanti Niketan Kunj in Hardwar. Lee Jung is doing her masters in yoga from the same university.

At 4.15am near the Sardana intersection on the Delhi- Meerut bypass road, a car blocked their way. One of its four occupants came out and held a pistol to Lee Jung and Hardason.

Forcing his way into their taxi, he asked the driver to drive towards Pawali Khas village. His accomplices, meanwhile, tailed the Koreans' cab. At 4.30am, they stopped inside a mango orchard.

"The assailants asked us to hand over whatever we had. They took away Rs 10,000 and some South Korean currency notes kept in our bag," Lee Jung said. " They also snatched Rs 500 from the driver, his mobile phone and the car keys. Then, they told us to open our bags and asked what was inside.

We told them there were clothes and food." The assailants then fled. The four men, however, did not touch their laptops, cellphones and a camera.

Shaken, Lee Jung called up people at Shanti Niketan Kunj, who called up the principal of an institute in Meerut and asked him to rush to their help.

"I got a call at 5.15am. I immediately left for the location. I found the foreigners in the orchard. I then called the police," R. C. Savita Singh, principal of Venkateswara Insitute, said.

In another incident, a nine- year- old boy was kidnapped and murdered allegedly by a distant relative in Meerut after his father refused to pay Rs 40,000 in ransom. Chetan was kidnapped from outside his house in east Delhi's Kalyanpuri on January 2.

The police couldn't save Chetan but succeeded to rescue a 12-year-old boy who was allegedly kidnapped by 21-year-old Shabbir Ali from Bhajanpura on Monday. The police rescued the boy, Babar Ali, from a house in the same colony where the accused was residing. Shabbir allegedly kidnapped the boy to pay off debts.