MAN HELD FOR ABDUCTING AND KILLING 3-YR-OLD

The special staff of northeast district police arrested one Shahzad (21) on Tuesday for allegedly kidnapping and murdering a three-year-old boy, Mohammad Aman, a day after Independence Day. The incident took place at Old Mustafabad near Gokalpuri.

Shahzad is the unemployed son of Aman’s landlord. Shahzad’s best friend and video parlour owner Hasim (22) was also arrested for helping the accused. Sources said more arrests are likely.
Dharmendra Kumar, joint commissioner (New Delhi range) said Aman was the son of Mohammad Arif, who works in a cloth manufacturing unit near Seelampur. “Arif has limited means but he owns a prime piece of land in northeast Delhi. This was his only investment and he wished to use it as a last resort to fight off poverty. His son Aman was playing outside their rented home on August 16. Aman was last seen talking with Shahzad around 4 pm and then he got into a car with the accused. Hasim was also with them,” said JCP Kumar.
The sources said the accused took the child to Aligarh. “On their way, they used a SIM purchased through unfair means to call up the child’s family around 8.30 pm. The call was traced to Lal Kuan in Ghaziabad. The accused allowed the child to even talk over the phone with his parents. The two decided that they had to kill the child as he knew them. When they were around 20 km away from Aligarh, they smothered the child to death while he was sleeping in the car after dinner. Shahzad dumped the body in Aligarh and returned back to the capital the same night,” said a senior investigating officer.
The police said though Aman was killed on August 16, the accused waited for five days before calling the victim’s family and demanding a ransom of Rs 10 lakh on August 21. “Shahzad knew that Arif was the owner of the plot and even asked him to sell the land to get the money. When we investigated the call, we were convinced that someone close to Arif was behind the incident. From August 21, we started technical surveillance and eventually arrested the accused on Tuesday,” said a senior police officer.
The police said the Aligarh police recovered the child’s body on August 17. “Though we had intimated all the neighbouring states about the kidnapping, the UP police failed to contact us. The Aligarh police waited for a couple of days before burying the body after conducting the postmortem. We had to dig up the grave and identify the deceased from the clothes he was wearing,” said the investigating officer.