Amid the alarming rise in incidents of abductions in Bihar, news of the murder of a four-year-old boy after his abduction for ransom spread a fresh wave of shock on Sunday even as the state’s police headquarters mooted an action plan to curb the resurgent menace.
Niraj Rai, the four-year-old son of a vegetable seller in Bihar’s Vaishali district, was abducted by three local youth when the boy was returning from the anganwari, government-run pre-primary school, near his home on December 22. The three youth, who demanded `15 lakh for about a week from the boy’s family to free him, told police after their arrest on Sunday that they had killed him an hour after his abduction.
The boy was hacked to death and his body was buried on the bank of the Ganga near his village, Terasia, the arrested youth told the police.
Vaishali SP Sujit Kumar said the boy’s clothes and the weapon used in his murder were recovered but efforts to locate his body have not succeeded.
The police sources said the three arrested youth, who are neighbours of the slain boy’s father, Ram Pravesh Rai, abducted him after they learnt that Rai had recently sold a plot of land for about `20 lakh. They took the boy on their bike after promising to give him guavas.
This abduction and murder follows a similarly shocking incident in Patna on December 24, when the news of the murder of 10-year-old student Amarjeet Kumar after his abduction by three adolescent boys surfaced.