A 5-year-old girl was successfully rescued 56 hours after being kidnapped.

The girl, Wu Yiran, was grabbed by a person sitting on the back of a motorcycle on January 1 as she was on her way home with her 8-year-old brother in Lidong village, Anhui province.

Police said the brother cried for help, and was dragged for 5 or 6 meters as he tried to grab onto his sister.

Anhui police immediately set up a special investigation team and deployed local police officers to track the motorcycle, checking video surveillance cameras to monitor the vehicle.

Several police micro blogs in Anhui published surveillance images and offered a reward of 100,000 yuan ($15,400) to members of the public who could provide valuable clues.

By Tuesday, investigators had received many tips from the public, and they found the main suspect, surnamed Fan, and his two accomplices hiding in a noodle shop in Handan, Hebei province.

The next day, the team along with 30 SWAT officers and armed soldiers arrested the three suspects in a hotel near the noodle shop and successfully rescued the girl.

"Thanks to the police officers' hard work and rapid monitoring in Anhui, Henan and Hebei, I am reunited with my daughter," the girl's mother said.

Although frightened, the girl is now in stable condition, said Tang Qingmei, a senior police officer from East China's Anhui Provincial Public Security Department.

The three-member trafficking gang was allegedly headed by Fan, who was born in Anhui. Also part of the gang was his mistress, who owned the noodle shop, and one of her fellow villagers.

Fan had recently been released from prison after serving four years and six months for theft and was working at the noodle shop.

"Due to a lack of money and because of a large number of potential buyers in Handan, we decided to target children in rural areas in my hometown," Fan allegedly confessed to police officers at a detention house in Anhui.

zhangyan1@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 01/08/2016 page5)