Kamal Ghorui
JHANSI: A 13-year-old boy, who had been kidnapped, was found dead in Uttar Pradesh’s Chitrakoot district Friday, his body stuffed inside a suitcase. Police shot his two kidnappers when they allegedly tried to escape during the recovery of the crime weapon; one of them died on the way to hospital.Ayush Kesarwani, a Class 7 student and resident of Bangar area, went missing Thursday evening. Around 8.30pm, his father Ashok, a cloth merchant, received a call from an unknown number demanding Rs 40 lakh ransom.
Police said the accused, Irfan (28) and Kallu (22), had called Ashok using a cellphone stolen from a relative. Both were natives of Prayagraj who had relocated a year ago; they ran a shop making tin boxes and trunks. They had been Ashok’s tenants until he kicked them out in Sept last year for alleged shady behaviour. Apparently nursing agrudge, the duo moved into a nearby house and lured Ayush to their accommodation.A distraught Ashok alerted cops, and police personnel from around 10 police stations, along with SOG and SWAT teams, carried out a frantic search. Technical surveillance teams traced the cellphone used to make the ransom call and zeroed in on the accused before they could switch the device off, destroy evidence, or flee.After an overnight search, the kidnappers were caught early Friday. They confessed to having murdered Ayush, stuffing his body in a suitcase and burying it near his residence. “The accused were taken to a nearby jungle where the stolen cellphone was recovered. They constantly tried to mislead us about the body’s location. In between, they snatched the gun from police and opened fire. In retaliatory firing, both were injured. When they were taken to the hospital, Kallu was declared dead, while Irfan was referred to a higher centre in Prayagraj,” Chitrakoot SP Arun Kumar Singh said.Kallu had a murder case and two other cases registered in the past in Prayagraj Commissionerate.The crime sparked protests in the area, with thousands of angry residents staging a dharna, blocking the national highway for hours and raising slogans demanding harsh punishment for the accused, including ‘bulldozer justice’. The protesters demanded compensation and a govt job for the kin of the deceased, along with an assurance that they would not be booked for blocking the NH.Senior police and administrative officials reached the spot and appealed to the agitators to vacate the area, assuring them of proper action.
