Four more held for kidnapping and murder of Gorakhpur teenager: Police

“During interrogation, it was found that the boy's father Mahajan Gupta had close links with Ajay Chauhan and Nikhil Bharti as they were of the same village and they knew that Gupta had money after selling a piece of land, " police said. “The kidnappers took Balram Gupta to Vinod Van, a forest and picnic area, and gave him sleeping pills with a cold drink but the boy vomited so they held him hostage at Dayanand's old house,” said the SSP.

Four more persons have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old boy of Pipraich area near here early this week, police said on Wednesday. Gorakhpur's SSP Sunil Kumar Gupta said the motive behind the crime was to extort a huge ransom from the victim's father Mahajan Gupta, as one of the accused knew him and was aware that he had recently sold some property and was having enough money to pay the ransom.

"Those arrested include Nitin Chauhan, Ajay Chuhan, Abhishek Chauhan and Shiv Kumar. A scooter, a bike and some mobile phones used in the kidnapping too were recovered from them," SSP Gupta said. A total of nine persons have been arrested so far for their involvement in the crime, said the SSP, adding a hunt is on for the tenth accused.

Mahajan Gupta's son Balram Gupta, a class 6 student, was kidnapped on Sunday evening and killed soon after his abduction. His body was recovered by police on Monday from a Tinkonia No 2 jungle near a canal. Police had earlier arrested three main accused of the case -- Dayanand Rajbhar, Ajay Gupta and Nikhil Bharti -- and sent them to jail under judicial custody.

They had also arrested Rinku Gupta and Nitesh Paswan for selling mobile SIM to the kidnappers, used for making ransom calls. "During interrogation, it was found that the boy's father Mahajan Gupta had close links with Ajay Chauhan and Nikhil Bharti as they were of the same village and they knew that Gupta had money after selling a piece of land, " police said.

"The kidnappers took Balram Gupta to Vinod Van, a forest and picnic area, and gave him sleeping pills with a cold drink but the boy vomited so they held him hostage at Dayanand's old house," said the SSP. "Ajay Chauhan injected drugs to him to make him unconscious and strangulated him to death after that. They then packed the body in a bag and threw it near Kevatia nulla near Jungle Tinkonia no-2," the SSP said.

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