Tausifur's parents were shopping at Police Plaza Concord when they realised that the six-year-old seen moments ago was not with them.

The anxious parents looked for him everywhere in the shopping mall in vain on Friday night.

They later saw their son being picked up by a stranger in the mall's CCTV footage and informed police around 9:30pm.

About an hour later, a man called Tausifur's father Momin Ahmed and demanded Tk 10 lakh ransom.

After seven hours of frantic effort, police rescued the boy and arrested three suspects early yesterday, said the boy's uncle Rayhan Rohan.

The man who called Momin said he wanted the money delivered in 10-15 minutes and threatened him with “bad consequences”.

The man told Momin to go near Nabisco with the money. He changed the money drop-off location twice before asking Momin to drop the bag of money from Bijoy Sarani-Tejgaon Link Road near the rail lines, Rohan said.

As a man picked up the bag and tried to flee, detectives shot him in the leg and took him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital around 4:30am.

Hospital staffers said suspect Rubel, 25, was shot in the right leg.

Rubel is the man, who was seen in the CCTV footage taking Tausifur, said Shajahan, additional deputy commissioner (north) of Detective Branch of police.

Another police team raided a flat at Kunipara and rescued Tausifur around 4:00am and arrested two suspects there, he said, adding that an officer was injured in the operation.

“I am really grateful to police. Their effort was really sincere,” Momin said.