CHAPTER-I

INTRODUCTION
According to Blackstone, “Abduction in general signifies the act of illegally taking or leading
away, carrying off by force a child, wards, voter or wife. This may be by fraud, persuasion, or
open violence”. In a more restricted sense it is confined to the taking of females for the purpose of
marriage, concubinage, or prostitution.

Abduction is the criminal act of taking away a person by persuasion, fraud or by open force or
violence. Kidnapping and abduction are separate offences differing from one another in various
respects. Abduction is a continuing offence whereas kidnapping is not so.In the offence of
kidnapping, the consent of the person removed is immaterial. But in case of abduction, free and
voluntary consent of the person abducted, is a good defence.A person cannot be convicted of an
offence of abduction when he is tried on a charge of kidnapping, unless a fresh charge is framed.

Its means forcibly taking away of a person and moving him or her from one place to another against
their will. Use of force is a necessary ingredient of abduction. Abduction is the criminal act of
taking by force or strong persuasion of a wife, husband, child or other person. It has also been
defined as the illegal act of taking away a person by persuasion, fraud or by open force or violence.
The offence of Abduction is mentioned under Section 362 of the Indian Penal Code.

According to Section 362 of the Indian Penal Code “Whoever by force compels, or by any deceitful
means induces, any person to go from any place, is said to abduct that person.”

The ingredients of Section 362 are:

i) Forcible compulsion or inducement by deceitful means;

ii) The objects of such compulsion or inducement must be the going of a person from any place.

Section 362 merely defines the term ‘abduction’. Therefore, abduction per se is not offence under
the IPC. It is an offence when it is accompanied by certain intent to commit another offence. Force
or fraud is essential to make abduction punishable.

To constitute abduction, the person so abducted, must have gone from one place to another by
compulsion of force or by inducement by deceitful means.

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 CHAPTER-II

Ingredients of Abduction:
By force:
The term ‘force’ as embodied in S. 362, IPC, means the use of actual force and not merely show
of force or threat of force. Where an accused threatened the prosecutrix with a pistol to make her
go with him, it would amount to abduction under this section.

Deceitful means:
‘Deceitful’ means misleading a person by making false representation and thereby persuading the
person to leave any place. The expression ‘deceitful means’ includes a misleading statement.
Deceitful means is used as an alternative to ‘use of force’. It is, really speaking, a matter of
intention. The intention of the accused is the basis and gravamen of the charge.

Inducement:
In inducement there is some active suggestion on the part of the abductor which is the case of the
person abducted to move to some place where he would not have gone but for this suggestion. The
change of mind of the victim must have been caused by an external pressure of some kind.

To go from any place:

An essential element of abduction is compelling or inducing a person to go from any place. It need
not be only from the custody of lawful guardian as in the case of kidnapping. For unlike
kidnapping, abduction is a continuing offence. The offence of kidnapping is complete, the moment
a person is removed from India or from the keeping of lawful custody of guardian.

But, in the case of abduction, a person is being abducted not only when he is first taken away from
any place, but also when he is subsequently removed from one place to another place. The words
‘from any place’ indicate the meaning that abduction is a continuing offence.

Continuous offence:

This term applies to doing an unlawful act over and over again. Some offences are of their very
nature continuing offences. By that I mean that the evidence of a number of criminal acts is
required to prove the single offence. Thus one count or charge properly recites the crime. Those
continuing offences originally included consorting and other offences which often have gerunds
as a description of the offence: keeping, living, suffering, permitting and frequenting are some of

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them. These offences are all statutory and seem to have been intended to be dealt with
summarily. They are social order offences designed to avoid nuisance being caused to citizens of
good morals and sober habits. Continuous offences are well known to the law, especially in cases
of conspiracy, public nuisance, harassment, abduction and certain statutory offences such as
living on the earnings of a prostitute.

Abduction is a continuing offence and a person is liable not only when a person is first moved
from one place to another but all those who are involved in subsequently moving that person to
other places are also liable.

Abetment:
If a married woman consents to her own abduction and the consent is a free consent, the offence
of abduction is not constituted and the woman would not be liable to abet her own abduction.

Role of Consent

Consent of the person who is moved or taken away is of vital importance in abduction. Unlike
kidnapping where consent of the person who is taken away is immaterial, in abduction consent given
by the person moved will not amount to an act of abduction.

Illustrations
1. A is a minor daughter of B. A voluntarily goes away with C and indulges in sexual relations with
him. C cannot be held liable for abduction because A willfully consented to go with him, there was
no use of force or inducement.

2. Y is a minor daughter of R. X forcibly takes away Y without the knowledge of R. Y runs away
with Z while she is custody of R who is X’s relative. In this case, X is liable for abduction, however
Z will be liable if he had some criminal intent to take away Y.

Abduction is not a substantive offence. It is however an auxiliary act or a subsidiary act which is only
punishable when coupled with a criminal intent. Abduction is not a crystallized offence but a
continuing one. It does not confine to the first time a person is taken away or moved from one place.
It extends to every other person who is involved in the moving of the person by use of force or deceitful
means.

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Causes of Kidnapping and Abduction

Unemployment

The high unemployment rate in many countries has pushed citizens to make money through
abduction. The unemployed youth turn to crime to make money. They believe that when they
kidnap the rich, they will share in the richness of the rich by getting their own cut.

Poverty

Any person who lives below $1.25 a day is said to be poor. Poverty is a propelling force that
pushes people toward crime. They find themselves into kidnapping because they are no longer
happy with their own condition. Sometimes, they believe that one successful kidnapping will
fetch them the money they will need to start a clean business.

Illiteracy

Illiteracy is the inability to read or write. When people can read and write, they gain knowledge
that can help them in life, and their literacy helps them understand the core consequence of a
particular action.

Religion

Religion is another cause. Some people love their religion so much that even when that religion
is teaching them the wrong thing, they believe it is right. Many kidnappings in the world today
have their root cause in religion. The head of one religion may want to overshadow the other and
propel his men to kidnap his opponents.

Greed

Some want to own everything in the world. When men are not content with what they have, they
may turn to crime to make more money. A wicked businessman can kidnap his business rival to
take some money from him and become richer.

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Politics

Some thugs who are sponsored by politicians arrange for the kidnapping of their opponents.
Sometimes, they do this so that their opponents will make concessions or change their votes on
the issues.

Corruption

A society where corruption is customary is likely to experience a high level of kidnapping. The
truth is that when any government indulges in corruption by embezzling public funds, citizens
will react by kidnapping these politicians in an attempt to regain the money that was stolen from
them.

Child abduction

Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor (a child under the age
of legal adulthood) from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.

The term child abduction includes two legal and social categories which differ by their
perpetrating contexts: abduction by members of the child's family or abduction by strangers:

 Parental child abduction is the unauthorized custody of a child by a family relative

(usually one or both parents) without parental agreement and contrary to family law
ruling, which may have removed the child from the care, access and contact of the other
parent and family side. Occurring around parental separation or divorce, such parental or
familial child abduction may include parental alienation, a form of child abuse seeking to
disconnect a child from targeted parent and denigrated side of family. This is, by far, the
most common form of child abduction.
 Abduction or kidnapping by strangers (by people unknown to the child and outside the
child's family) is rare. Some of the reasons why a stranger might kidnap an unknown
child include:
 extortion to elicit a ransom from the parents for the child's return
 illegal adoption, a stranger steals a child with the intent to rear the child as their
own or to sell to a prospective adoptive parent
 human trafficking, stealing a child with the intent to exploit the child themselves
or through trade to someone who will abuse the child through slavery, forced
labor, or sexual abuse.

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A Statistical Analysis

Over the last five years for which data is available—2012 to 2016—the rate of child abductions
more than doubled to reach 119 per million child population (population under 18 years of age).

The overall rate of kidnapping also went up during this period, but the rate of child kidnapping
grew at a faster pace.

The share of child kidnapping in overall kidnappings rose from 23% in 2006 to 40% in 2012, and
then climbed further to 60% in 2016, NCRB data shows.

As an earlier Plain Facts column has pointed out, there are inconsistencies in the manner in
which NCRB computes crime rates figures. Hence, for this analysis, the crime rate figures have
been recomputed based on population projections using 2001 and 2011 census figures.

The rise in child abductions appears to be a countrywide phenomenon, with all states witnessing
an increase in such crimes.

The states that fare the worst in terms of the rate of child abductions include Maharashtra,
Tripura and Assam—which have witnessed lynchings related to child-lifting rumours—as well
as Delhi and Goa.

The NCRB data suggests that such cases of elopement may have contributed to the rise of
reported abductions in the 2006-12 period, when the share of reported abductions of older
children (those aged 15-18) increased while the share of reported abductions of younger children
dropped. In this period, the share of under-15 abductions declined three percentage points to 32%
of all child abductions.

However, from 2012-16, the share of reported abductions of older children (those aged 16-18)
dropped even as the share of reported abductions of younger children (those below 16 years of
age) rose sharply to 53% of all child abductions in 2016. The under-15 abduction figures are not
available separately for the latest years as the NCRB age-classification has changed in recent
years.

The NCRB data also shows that convictions against abductors are hard to achieve. The rate of
convictions (as a proportion of trials completed) in abduction cases has declined sharply over the
past few years even as incidences of kidnapping have increased.

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 CHAPTER-III

JUDICIAL ANALYSIS

In Bahdur Ali v. King Emperor [AIR 1923 Lah 158], a kidnapped girl who managed to escape
from the Kidnappers met the accused, who misrepresented to her that he was a Police Constable.
He told her that he would take her to the police station. But instead, he took her to his house, kept
her there, demanded and took a ransom of Rs. 600 from her mother, before he handed her back. It
was held that his act amounted to abduction.

In Rabinarayan Das v. State [1992 Cr.LJ 269 (Ori.)], the [blind] prosecutrix was to go to her school.
But the petitioner took her to the secretariat premises. No evidence is forthcoming that she went
there out of her own volition without any inducement by the petitioner. There is nothing to show
that the prosecutrix had gone of her own volition.

The place where she had been taken to was not her destination. It has been observed that any act
on the part of the person to lead a woman astray from the path of rectitude is seduction and if it is
followed by intercourse, it will be seduction for illegal intercourse.

In Mahbub v. R [(1907) 4 ALJR 482], an orphan girl aged about 17 years was brought up by her
guardian as his own daughter. The neighbour induced her to leave home on the assurance that
either he himself would marry her or get her married. He debauched her himself and handed her
over to one of his friends who proceeded to have illicit connection with her. The neighbour was
held guilty of offence of abduction. It was held that the expression ‘deceitful means’ is wide
enough to include the inducing of a girl to leave her guardian’s house by means of a representation
that the person to whom she went would either marry her himself or arrange for her marriage.

Vinod Chaturvedi v. State of Madhya Pradesh

In the present case, the appellant was alleged to have abducted the deceased Brindaban. The
process of investigation pointed out that Brindaban on being persuaded by the accused persons
and Vinod in particular went inside his house, came out properly dressed to accompany the group
to village Ramapura. Such conduct made it clear that Brindaban was not abducted the accused
persons.

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 CHAPTER-IV
Solutions to Kidnapping and Abduction
There are solutions which when applied will help reduce the rate of kidnapping in any society or
country. Among them are:
 Training strong anti-kidnapping agents
 Monitoring the activities of the policemen
 Serious punishment for any kidnapper
 Job creation
Training Anti-Kidnapping Agents
Any society that wants to fight kidnapping successfully should hire and train capable people to
combat the issue. When law enforcement agencies are actively involved, the incidence of the
crime is lessened.
Monitoring the Activities of the Policemen
Reports have shown that policemen assist in some kidnappings. Notable examples are some of
the abductions that take place in Mexico. Eliminating the criminals within the ranks of law
enforcement is key.
Seriously Punishing Any Kidnapper Caught
Mild punishment only serves to encourage the criminal. When the government treats kidnappers
harshly, fewer crimes will be committed.
Job creation
Generating jobs for the citizens of every country, especially the youth, will promote the fight
against crime. When they people are gainfully employed, they won't need to commit crimes.

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 CHAPTER-V
CONCLUSION
Education and assistance to all parties that can prevent family abduction — law enforcement
personnel, prosecutors, family court judges and attorneys, social workers, counselors, and at-risk
families — is critical. Protecting our children from this damaging crime will require the active
involvement of everyone with the power to help. The Polly Klaas Foundation recommends
adoption of specific, proven measures to prevent family abductions, discourage potential
abductors, and reduce the damage of any family abductions that do occur.
The silver lining of the problem of family abduction is that it is a preventable tragedy, largely
because, unlike stranger abductions, the perpetrator is usually identifiable — the kidnapper is
kin.
Research from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that when parents understand that
kidnapping their own child is a crime, they are less likely to follow through with abduction plans.
Identifying potential abductors and informing them that kidnapping is not only a criminal
violation of the law but also causes the child irreparable psychological trauma can significantly
reduce the risk of family abduction.
Including requirements for counseling in custody orders can also help prevent the problem.
Research shows that as little as 10 hours of intervention effectively reduces the likelihood of
family abduction.
Preventive measures such as targeted outreach and education to at-risk families — parents
undergoing divorce and separation — not only save the state from costly expenses associated
with search, recovery and prosecution, but can also spare the child from unnecessary pain and
suffering caused by family abduction.

REFERENCES
INDIAN PENAL CODE- PROF. S.N. MISRA
INDIAN PENAL CODE- AVTAR SINGH
https://lawnn.com/abduction
https://safecity.in/kidnapping-and-abduction
https://acadpubl.eu/hub
https://www.scribd.com