2 youths kidnap, murder teen; caught in Ludhiana police’s ransom trap

Police said that Dashrath Verma, a hosiery worker from Navneet Nagar of Jassian road, Ludhiana filed a ‘missing’ complaint after the diseappearance of his 16-year-old son Preet Verma on Monday. He told police that his son left home saying he was going to play cricket, but did not come back.

On Tuesday, Verma received a call from Preet’s phone and an unknown person claimed that his son was in their custody and if he wants to get him released, he should pay them Rs 50,000. He informed police and a trap was laid to arrest the accused.

Inspector Gopal Krishan, SHO, Salem Tabri police station, said that the accused Vijay Kumar (19) and his juvenile accomplice were picked up near Pindi Street where the father went to give them the ransom amount. However, after the arrest, both accused said they had killed Preet on Monday night itself after they had a brawl with him. “The accused killed the youth by hitting his head with bricks repeatedly and stuffing construction material such as gravel and sand in his mouth, so as to choke and suffocate him. They took him to an under-construction building behind Mahavira School in Hussainpura where they killed him Monday night. They threw his body in nearby bushes from where we recovered it. The accused said that three of them used to play cricket together and all of sudden, they got an idea that they should kidnap Preet and demand money from his father. However, the motive behind killing is being probed,” said the inspector.

ACP (north) Gurbinder Singh said that the youth who was killed had cleared his Class X and one of the accused had cleared Class XII. “The boy was murdered very brutally…their intention was clearly to kill him,” said ACP.

An FIR against was registered under sections 302 (murder), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) of IPC at Salem Tabri police station on the complaint of the victim’s father.