By Soumitra Nandi
Kolkata: Mutilated body of an eight-year-old boy has been recovered from a sack inside a drain not too far away from his school. Vishal Sharma, a student of class III of Vikram Vidyalaya had left his residence at Sanatan Mistry Lane at Golabari in Howrah district along with his sister for school on Wednesday but did not return.
According to police sources, the hand of a child was recovered from a heap of garbage by the local residents on Thursday night. On Friday morning the body of the child was recovered from a sack in the same heap of garbage behind his school Vikram Vidyalaya .
Vishal’s parents had lodged a complaint of abduction with the Golabari police station on Wednesday night after the child did not return home from his school. The body of the child was identified by the family members on Friday morning.
“The family members had alleged that the child’s maternal brother Ranajoy Thakur had abducted and murdered the child. We have arrested Ranajoy from Hazaribag in Jharkhand on Friday late afternoon on the basis of complaint of the child’s family”, said Krishnakali Lahiri, ADCP of Howrah City police.
According to sources, a phone call was made in the cell phone of Vishal’s father Ramvilas Sharma demanding Rs 50 lakhs as ransom against the release of the child on Wednesday night. The caller had said that the ransom amount should be brought at Hanuman Mandir near Satyanarayan Park in Burrabazar area in Central Kolkata. The police in plain clothes accompanied the family along with the ransom money but nobody turned up at the spot.
The sleuths then started tracking the phone call of the alleged accused and travelled to Hazaribag in Jharkhand from where Ranajoy was apprehended.
“We have every reason to believe that merely ransom was not the motive of the murder. The way the child was brutally murdered suggests that there must be some family enmity”, said an investigating officer.