A 14-year-old was on Wednesday arrested for allegedly kidnapping and later, murdering his eight-year-old cousin, so that he could repay the money he had spent from his father’s ATM card.
The accused strangled his cousin Dheeraj Pandit to death, and threw his body in a nullah near the Gorai creek. The body was fished out from inside the nullah at around 6.30 pm on Wednesday.
Pandit, who lives with his family in the Bhimnagar slums, went missing on Sunday afternoon. When he did not return home in the evening, his family filed a missing person’s complaint. The next day, Pandit’s father Srikumar, who is a coconut vendor, found a note demanding a ransom of `1 lakh stuck outside the door of his house. “The victim went missing at around 1:30 pm, when someone called out to him. His family filed a missing person’s complaint in the evening. We saw the note the next day, and discovered that the sheet was torn from a school notebook. We decided to check all the notebooks of children in the vicinity. We finally found similar pages in the accused’s books. A few pages were also found missing from the book, which aroused our suspicion,” said a police officer requesting anonymity.
The police detained him for questioning, and confessed to have kidnapped and murdered the boy during interrogation. “We have arrested him,” said a police officer, requesting anonymity.
When contacted, Bhag-wan Chate, senior police inspector, confirmed the arrest. “The accused took Pandit to his house and strangled him to death, with a tie. He later dumped the eight-year-old’s body near the Gorai creek,” said the officer.
Citing the reason for the crime, assistant police inspector P. More said that the accused had recently spent a lot of money on his father’s ATM card. “He was scared about his father finding out about the missing amount and wanted to reimburse it, as soon as possible,” Mr More said. Another officer said that the accused was interested in making toy aeroplanes and had withdrawn around `50,000 over a period of three months to buy electronic items for the same.
According to the police, the accused is the son of Srikumar’s elder brother, who is also a coconut vendor. Both the families live in Galli No.2 of Bhimnagar.