Karnataka: 9 months after boy killed, weeks after she filed missing FIR, mother held

“The mother of the boy and two others have been arrested. There is a match between the body that was found in Tamil Nadu and the missing boy. The woman approached the police seven months after the boy went missing,” a senior police officer in southeast Bengaluru, where the crime occurred, said.

Apart from murder charges, police will now also frame charges under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, sources said.

According to police, investigation found that the body of an unidentified boy, found in Bargur, in neighbouring Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu, in February this year was that of the boy, reported missing seven months later in Bengaluru by his mother.

In February, police in Krishnagiri had found the body of a 10-year-old boy, who had been tortured to death near a hill in Bargur area. The body was found by local residents — the head was tonsured, chilly powder was found in the mouth, and there were burn marks all over, according to police.

The Tamil Nadu State Commission for Protection of Child Rights had taken up the issue and sought a regular status report from police on investigations. No headway, however, was made in the probe in Tamil Nadu until MICO Layout police in Bengaluru began a probe into the missing complaint filed by the woman.

Bengaluru police’s probe found that the 10-year-old had been left by his mother, who was separated from her husband, with a friend in February. The police, following sustained interrogation of the friend, learnt that the boy was seen as a hindrance in the friend’s relationship.

According to police, their probe found that the boy was tortured and killed in Bengaluru in February and the body was taken in a car, rented from a private agency, and dumped in Bargur, just over 100 km away. The friend, the boy’s mother, and another woman — the latter said to be associated with the friend — allegedly went to dispose of the body, the probe found. The friend has a criminal record, police said.

Police sources said the mother, who has been named accused number 3 in the case, decided to file the missing complaint with police in August after the child’s grandmother began seeking answers on his whereabouts.

On how the case was cracked, a police source said they were intrigued by the fact that the missing complaint was being filed more than six months after the child had disappeared. They first questioned the woman’s friend in a sustained manner and found that the boy had been killed and the body dumped at a remote site.

After the case was identified as one of murder, police sought information about whether unidentified body of any 10-year-old boy had been found in any police station limits; a match emerged in Bargur in Tamil Nadu.