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A stranger who drove off in a car while a five-year-old was inside has insisted he was saving the boy instead of abducting him from a petrol station south-east of Melbourne.
A father left his son inside his running car while he ran into the Shell Service Station on the Princes Highway in Officer to buy a slab of water at about 8.45am today.
When he came out two minutes later to find his car gone, panic set in.
A man had hopped off his motorbike, walked over to the ute and drove off while the five-year-old was in the back seat.
“The quick-thinking dad has called his own phone he left inside his vehicle which was answered by the alleged car thief,” a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
“He alerted the male driver to the fact that his son was in the car and urged him to drop his son at a police station.
“The alleged offender has driven the boy to Pakenham Police Station where he was promptly arrested and the boy safely reunited with his father.”
Duaraj Karishna Ramanujam, the 42-year-old man who was arrested for the crime, told 9News the police have got the situation all wrong and he is the hero of the story.
“It’s not a big crime right? I’m saving a child mate,” he exclusively told 9News.
“He left the car and the child with the engine on which is not a good thing to do.
“He should realise his stupidity.”
Ramanujam said he was going to take the child to a police station anyways when the father called asking him to take his son there.
“They just ran up to me and put the handcuffs on me,” he said.
“In the meantime, the parents of the child, they reached the police station and there seemed like a distrust.
“My advice to them is to consider their action that led to these consequences.”
Police have spoken to Ramanujam and decided to release him for now.
He has yet to be formally interviewed.
9News spotted him as he returned to collect his motorcycle, as well as the helmet and gloves he left on a table at a nearby cafe.
But Ramanujam insisted: “What I did is the right thing to do.”
“I’m using more common sense than anyone else. That’s how I consider myself,” he said.
