Dismembered body of missing minor boy found in Hardoi

The eleven-year-old boy had gone missing under mysterious circumstances when he was playing near his house on October 18 night

Dismembered body of an eleven-year-old boy was found in the sugarcane field nearly five days after he went missing while playing near his house in a Hardoi village on October 18 night, confirmed senior Hardoi police officials on Friday.

(Pic for representation)

Lucknow inspector general of police (IGP), Prashant Kumar-II said the postmortem of the body was done on Thursday, and it is a case of murder by strangulating the boy to death. He said the police teams are working on the case and further investigation is on.

Sharing further details, Hardoi superintendent of police (SP) Neeraj Kumar Jadaun said the victim boy who was son of Netram, and resident of Lalpur village under Shahabad police station limits, was last seen by his father at around 9pm on October 18 when he was playing near his house. He said the boy was a class V student at a private school.

He said the victim’s father had asked him to go home as it was too late, but he did not reach home. He said the victim’s father and other family members searched for the entire night and lodged a report regarding his disappearance at the local police station on October 19.

The SP said the police teams were trying to locate the boy but could not find his whereabouts and later a dismembered body of a boy was found in sugarcane field around 1.5 kilometres from the place of his disappearance at around 2 pm on Wednesday. He said the family later confirmed the identity of the child on Wednesday night. He said the body parts were badly decomposed and it seemed he was killed at least three-four days back.

A local police official said the boy was strangulated and the body parts did not seem to have been cut by any sharp weapon. Apparently, the body parts were dismembered by wild animals while feeding on the body, he said.

Shahabad circle officer (CO) Anuj Kumar Mishra said that so far police had failed to get any clue in the case and even the motive behind the killing was not clear. “We have interacted with the victim’s family members and tried to find out the reason behind such heinous crime. Different police teams are working on different angles, including personal enmity, sexual abuse, human sacrifice or any other reason,” he said.