Teen kills 8-yr-old cousin after kidnapping him for ransom

Police said accused had withdrawn Rs 40,000 from father's bank account two months ago and wanted to put money back.

Desperate to arrange the money he had secretly withdrawn using his father's ATM card, a 15-year-old boy allegedly kidnapped his eight-year-old cousin for ransom and later murdered him. The Borivali police detained the juvenile accused on Wednesday and recovered the victim's body from the mangroves at Gorai creek late in the evening.

Police officers said two months ago, the accused had withdrawn Rs 40,000 from his father's bank account without his knowledge and wanted to put the money back so that he would not get caught. After kidnapping Dheeraj Pandit, the accused allegedly demanded a ransom of Rs 1 lakh for his release. According to the police, the accused strangled his cousin, fearing that he would identify him.

Borivali police officers said Dheeraj, who stayed with his family in the Bhimnagar slums in Gorai, was reported missing on Sunday afternoon. His family filed a missing person's complaint with the Borivali police. Around 6.30 am on Monday, when he was leaving for work, Dheeraj's father Srikumar, a coconut vendor, found a hand-written note stuck on his front door demanding Rs 1 lakh and took it to the police.

Dheeraj was the youngest of Srikumar's three sons, who also has a daughter.

"The note found by Srikumar was written on a paper from a school notebook. We decided to check all the notebooks of nearby children to search for similar looking pages and finally found such pages in the book of the victim's cousin. A few pages were also found missing," said Bhagwan Chate, senior inspector of Borivali police station.

Based on this lead, the police detained the accused for questioning. According to the police, the accused confessed during interrogation that he had kidnapped his cousin and taken him to his house, which is adjacent to the victim's. Their fathers are brothers.

... contd.

ALSO READ

Teen raped at birthday party, sold to man

Alleged bomb planter Siddiqui claims ATS threatened to kill him

Cops pin hopes on CCTV footage to arrest acid attack accused

BMC single window to help people check legality of flats