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Mumbai, Jul 22: The Amboli poice on Wednesday rescued the three-year-old daughter of a construction worker, who was allegedly kidnapped and sold to a labourer in Bhiwandi for Rs 2000 by three men.

The police have arrested Nisar Mulla and his brother Jamal, from whom kidnapped girl Beauty was rescued, and three construction workers — Kalu (22), Farukh (22) and Maya Khatun (19)— who allegedly kidnapped the child and sold her off to Mulla.

Police sub-inspector Uddhav Rajge from the Amboli police station said, “The complainant Shaikh and the three accused work as construction labourers at a site under our jurisdiction. At the site, there is a woman who takes care of the labourers’ children while they work. On Monday evening, the three accused approached the woman and told her that they had been sent by Beauty’s father to collect her as he was busy with work. As the woman knew the accused, she handed over the child to the trio.”

Later, when Shaikh’s shift ended and he went to the woman to collect his daughter, he was told that she had been taken away by the trio.

“A panicked Shaikh called up one of the accused on his cell phone and asked where his daughter was. The accused told him that they had taken Beauty for an outing at the Bombay Central as she had been crying and would return her back after some hours. However, when Shaikh tried to call them up after some hours, their phones were switched off, after which Shaikh approached the Amboli police and filed a kidnapping case,” said Rajge.

The police then began tracking the cell phones of the accused and finally arrested the trio from Kalyan railway station late on Tuesday night.

The trio told investigators that they had sold off Beauty to one Nisar Mulla, a labourer from Bhiwandi, for Rs 2,000.

“Acting on the information, we arrested Nisar and his brother Jamal from their Bhiwandi home and rescued the girl. Initially, we believed that Mulla was childless and had purchased Beauty so that he could have a child. But now it seems that he has his own children so the reasons for the transactions are not clear yet. We have charged the five with kidnapping and are conducting further inquiries in the matter. More arrests are likely,” Rajge said.