Teen abducted by friends for Rs 1 crore, killed

A 17-year-old boy was abducted and allegedly murdered by two of his friends, including a minor, who demanded a ransom of Rs 1 crore from the victim’s father. The two accused were held on Tuesday.

The victim, Ankit Gupta, was kidnapped on February 11 and was strangled to death on the same day by his friends. His body was dumped in Dadri area of Gautam Budh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh.

The accused then made a call to Ankit’s father Anil Gupta and demanded '1 crore in ransom, which was later, brought down to Rs 20,00,000, the police said.

The arrested accused was identified as Zeeshan Rai (19) and a juvenile, who was also apprehended in the case. Zeeshan, a car driver, was known to the victim through the juvenile, who was his close friend.

The police said on February 11, Anil Gupta had filled a FIR about his son’s kidnapping at Shahadra police station. He received a ransom call for payment of Rs 1 crore for the release of his son that was later negotiated to Rs 20 lakhs. During the course of investigation, the police focused on the technical analysis of call records, and friends of the victim were also interrogated. The probe team zeroed in on two boys — one juvenile aged 17, who was the friend of the victim, and other was Zeeshan.

On the basis of technical analysis, the juvenile was questioned. “The juvenile admitted his involvement and narrated entire sequence of kidnapping and murder of Ankit Gupta with the help of his friend Zeeshan. They both had planned the kidnapping since January,” said a police official.

The police said that the kidnappers had bought three pre-activated SIMs on fake identity and second-hand mobile phones. As per the plan, the juvenile called up Ankit from his house on February 11 and duo went to Yamuna Vihar area in a Wagon-R.

“After that Zeeshan met both of them, they all went to the flat of a relative of Zeeshan at Subhash Mohalla in Bhajanpura. At the said flat, the duo instigated Ankit to consume alcohol with them,” said the police official.

“The duo strangulated Ankit Gupta and put the body in a jute bag which they brought in advance as per their plan. In the night they put the jute bag into an Alto, owned by the juvenile, and dumped the dead body near Dadri in Greater Noida,” the police said.

After dumping the body, they came back and called Ankit’s father and demanded the ransom, but he refused to give money without talking to his son. They even tried to divert the investigation by leaking name of one Bhagat during the ransom calls. But they could not succeed in getting the money. After that, they stopped calling up Ankit’s family.