What must be the age of a child/victim with regard to the offence of kidnapping from lawful…

Section 137(1)(b) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (formerly section 361 IPC) defines kidnapping from lawful guardianship as taking or enticing a child, or a person of unsound mind, out of the keeping of the lawful guardian without the guardian's consent. Section 2(3) defines a child as a person below the age of eighteen years, so the victim must be "Under eighteen years, whether a male or a female".

The former IPC rule of under sixteen years for a male and under eighteen years for a female no longer applies, and a single threshold of sixteen years, or a combination of eighteen and twenty-one years, is not the statutory test. The unsound-mind category remains separate.