Boy, 4, kidnapped by stepfather’s friend at midnight from Kandivali W, found dead

MUMBAI: A four-year-old boy who went missing overnight was found dead by his family in Kandivali West on Saturday

MUMBAI: A four-year-old boy who went missing overnight was found dead by his family in Kandivali West on Saturday. The Kandivali police have started an investigation into the death and preliminary findings indicate the role of the deceased child’s stepfather’s friend. The police suspect the child was strangled, and registered a case of kidnapping and murder.

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The boy stayed with his family in Kandivali East. Police said his mother had divorced her first husband four years ago and remarried in 2022. The deceased four-year-old was from her first marriage, and she had a two-year-old with her second husband. His mother took him to visit his grandmother on Friday, who was unwell and stayed on a footpath in Kandivali West. She told the police that her second husband had come to the house around 1.30am, asking if he could take the boy out and get him ice-cream. As he was drunk, the mother did not allow the child to go with him.

“He slept near his grandmother that night. Around 2 am on Saturday, CCTV footage near the area showed a man arriving in a bicycle. He picked up the sleeping child. Half an hour later, the man returned with the child’s body and dumped it in an under-construction site located 50 metres away from the grandmother’s house,” said a police officer from Kandivali Police Station. When the family discovered that the boy was missing, they began to search for him and found his body. The mother complained to the police. When they showed her the CCTV footage, she identified the man as her second husband’s friend.

“We are now searching for her husband’s friend, only after his arrest we can find if anyone else is involved,” he said. “We have formed various teams to search the accused. Prima facie it is suspected the boy was strangulated. We have sent the body for post-mortem.”