Man kills 13-year-old to pay off bet debts

Mumbai: A Sessions court has convicted a man for kidnapping and murdering the 13-year-old son of a family friend for ransom to pay off the money he lost while betting on an IPL match in 2013. The man had lost Rs 70 lakh on betting. After killing the boy, the accused tried to escape but the police learned of his involvement after a member of the boy’s family went to the police station in the same car in which he was kidnapped and chanced upon the boy’s shoes in the car. The accused had borrowed the car from a member of the boy’s family to ferry him to another place.

The court will pronounce the quantum of punishment on Wednesday. Special public prosecutor Kalpana Chavan said that judge S.B. Agrawal convicted Vigesh Sanghvi but acquitted the other accused, Himanshu Ranka (cousin of the deceased boy) for want of evidence. The prosecution proved before the court that on May 13, 2013, Sanghvi called the boy, Adit Ranka, son of Girgaon-based diamond broker Jiendra, on the pretext that his father had asked Sanghvi to give him the keys of their car. As Sanghvi was a family friend, the boy trusted him and went to meet him at Khetwadi in the same area. From there, Sanghvi took the boy to Raigad, saying that they were going on a long drive. According to prosecution, Sanghvi called the boy’s family for ransom but the family approached the police. When Sanghvi came to know about this, he panicked and killed the boy, threw his body near a river in Panvel and burned it to destroy evidence.

Later, when a member of the deceased’s family used the same car to go to the police station, he found the boy’s slippers. The family grew suspicious, one thing led to the other, and the police eventually nabbed Sanghvi.