Cousin held for kidnap, murder
In a sensational incident, a 28-year-old man and his friend were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the kidnapping and killing of his 13-year-old cousin, son of a diamond merchant from Khetwadi. The accused kidnapped the boy from outside his home and killed him in the Raigad district before trying to burn him.
Initial probe revealed that the accused and his friend had lost `3 lakh in betting on IPL matches that they had borrowed from someone. The VP Road police, in a joint operation with crime branch Unit 2, arrested the accused and recovered the boy’s body.
The deceased has been identified as Aditya Ranka, son of diamond merchant Jitendra Ranka, who lived in Pavpuri Building, 2nd Khetwadi. The arrested accused have been identified as Himanshu Ranka and Brijesh Sanghvi (25).
According to the police, on Tuesday the accused called on Jitendra Ranka’s cellphone and demanded a ransom of `30 lakh if he wanted his son alive. Initially, Ranka thought it was a prank, but when he called his wife to know Aditya’s whereabouts, he was informed that a man had called up at home and claimed that Aditya was called by his father to hand over the car keys. The police was then informed
Additional CP (south), Krishna Prakash said, “Since Jitendra had received `30 lakh on Saturday from in a business deal and the kidnappers also demanded the same amount, we suspected involvement of some insider. However, we got concrete leads in the case when Aditya’s father saw his slippers in Shailesh’s (Himanshu’s business partner) car and informed us. We also found bloodstains in the dickey of the car.”
Mr Prakash added, “When Himanshu found many police officers and crime branch officers at home, he informed Brijesh. Brijesh then slit Aditya’s wrist with a knife near Amba River in Raigad and tried to burn him (while he was unconscious, but not dead) in a village off the Mumbai-Pune Express Highway, at around 22 km away from Panvel.”
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