A five-year-old boy, who was kidnapped a couple of weeks ago in Dundigal, was found murdered.
The boy, Venkatesh, was kidnapped on the evening of March 17 by a neighbour, Gudla Raju, 29, who told police during interrogation that he had strangled the child to death the same night when he started crying, and dumped the body in a drain.
The kidnap plan was hatched to extort money from the boy’s father, Dubbaka Ramesh, 34, who had mentioned to the accused that he was building a house.
The accused assumed Ramesh would have Rs 6-7 lakhs in his possession for the purpose. Killing the boy the same day, he started demanding a ransom of `1.5 lakh, making calls from various public telephone booths and speaking in Hindi.
Finally, on April 3, he asked the child’s father to come with the money to a remote place in HMT Colony and place the amount beside a heap of stones.
The police, who followed the boy’s father, caught the accused on Wednesday.
During the interrogation, Raju admitted to have killed the boy on the same day.