Girl abducted in Kerala a day ago found
Kollam (PTI): More than 21 hours after a six-year-old girl was kidnapped from Pooyappally in southern Kerala a day ago, the child was found abandoned, but safe, in a public ground here on Tuesday afternoon.
Police and local body officials confirmed the good news that the child has been found and that she has been taken for medical examination.
Visuals on TV channels showed police officials carrying the child in their arms to their vehicles and taking her away for a medical examination.
Information about the child being abandoned in Kollam's Asramam ground was received while police were desperately searching for the girl. Earlier in the day, while state ministers expressed confidence in the police investigation, the youth wing of Congress held a silent protest outside the Pooyappally police station over the delay in rescue of the girl and also indicating their dissatisfaction with the investigation. The police had said that it was exploring all angles to locate the missing child and had also released a sketch of the suspected kidnapper.
The kidnappers, suspected to be four in number including a woman, came in a white car and abducted the girl when she was on her way to tuition classes along with her eight-year-old brother, according to the boy's statement to the police.
When the boy tried to stop the abductors, they pushed him aside and whisked the girl away in the car, an officer from the Pooyappally police station had said on Monday.
The boy suffered injuries to his knees while trying to save his sister, police had said.
The incident occurred on Monday between 4 pm and 4.30 pm, according to the police.
According to visuals shown on television news channels, two ransom calls were allegedly made by the kidnappers. Initially, they demanded Rs 5 lakh and then later doubled the figure.
In the audio recording of the purported second ransom call shown on TV channels, the kidnappers could be heard saying that the girl is safe and unharmed and will be returned on Tuesday morning on a payment of Rs 10 lakh.
The kidnappers had also warned the parents not to inform the police.
Prior to that, a ransom call demanding Rs 5 lakh was received by the parents a few hours after the kidnapping.
Police had intensified the search for the girl, with vehicles being checked on all major and minor roads in the southern districts of Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Thiruvananthapuram.
Visuals showed police officers checking vehicles, especially white-coloured ones, on the roads.
The parents of the children are nurses working in two separate private hospitals.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Prize in literature
_vb_21.jpeg)
Stockholm (AP): Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai, whose philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre.”
Krasznahorkai follows in the footsteps of literary greats including Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus and Toni Morrison in winning the prestigious award.
The literature prize has been awarded by the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy 117 times to a total of 121 winners. Last year's prize was won by South Korean author Han Kang for her body of work that the committee said “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
The literature prize is the fourth to be announced this week, following the 2025 Nobels in medicine, physics and chemistry.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. US President Donald Trump is considered a long shot despite recently telling United Nations delegates “everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
The final Nobel, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is to be announced on Monday.
Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes.
Each prize carries an award of 11 million Swedish kronor (nearly USD 1.2 million), and the winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma.
