Delhi man held for kidnap, murder of neighbour’s 8-year-old son

According to the cops, the accused, Gautam, demanded ₹25 lakh ransom even though he had already killed the boy by pushing him into a drain.

A 19-year-old man was arrested in outer Delhi’s Kirari on Thursday for the kidnap and murder of his neighbour’s eight-year-old son, police said.

The boy’s body was found in a drain in outer Delhi. (HT photo)

According to the cops, the accused, Gautam, demanded ₹25 lakh ransom even though he had already killed the boy by pushing him into a drain. He wanted the money for admission into a vocational course at a private institute where he believed he would get a decent placement.

The boy’s body was found in a drain in outer Delhi but the father got a call from Gautam saying that his son is alive and the body recovered was not his.

“Despite the father agreeing to pay the ransom, nobody ever turned up to collect it at either of the two places designated by the caller,” said additional commissioner of police (crime) Rajiv Ranjan.

The boy went missing on July 23 around 9 pm while his father, a trader, was in Hyderabad. Unable to find him, the family members approached the police.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Joy Tirkey said the missing boy’s body was found in a nearby drain two days later. While his autopsy was on, the boy’s father received a ransom call.

“Since the caller had claimed himself to be the kidnapper and knew that the father was at the Sanjay Gandhi hospital mortuary, we suspected the role of somebody known to the family,” Tirkey said.

The call details of the phone number used by the kidnapper were obtained and police zeroed in on Gautam, who lived next door.

Police said Gautam confessed to the crime during interrogation. On the night of July 23, he lured the boy away on the pretext of taking him to the local market. “When they reached Kirari drain in Pratap Vihar, Gautam pushed the boy into the drain. Gautam then joined the family in the search,” said additional commissioner Rajiv Ranjan.

The phone and the SIM card used to make the ransom calls have been recovered from Gautam.

Police said in 2018 he had allegedly stolen jewellery from a neighbor. The matter had reached the local police station but the neighbor aggrieved family had decided not to press charges.