In shocking revelations, the Mumbai police have found that the 13-year-old son of a diamond merchant was abducted and murdered over IPL betting losses.
The victim, Aditya Ranka, residing in south Mumbai was kidnapped and murdered for ransom on Monday night. The police arrested Ranka's cousin Himanshu and his friend Brigesh Singhavi in connection with the case on Tuesday night.
Shocking details about the abduction and murder have emerged after the duo confessed to the crime. Himanshu (28) and Sanghvi (25) have a history of indulging in betting on cricket matches. The two allegedly lost ₹10 lakh over betting on Indian Premier League cricket matches.
In a bid to pay back their debts, the duo hatched a plan to kidnap Aditya and demand a ransom from his father, a diamond merchant. "One of them was Rs seven lakh in debt while the other was Rs 3 lakh in debt," Additional Commissioner of Police Krishna Prakash told reporters on Wednesday.
"The two were involved in betting. We have found that they lost money in 3 places. That's when they planned on kidnapping the boy and the idea was to repay their debts with the ransom money," Prakash said.
Carrying out their plan, a phone call was made to Aditya's house around 11am on Monday. A person spoke to Aditya's mother asking her to send her son to a shop to get a set of keys left behind. Aditya's cousin met him near the shop and offered to take him in a Honda City car, owned by his friend Brigesh. Himanshu kidnapped Aditya and handed him over to Brigesh.
Soon after the kidnap, Aditya's father Jitender received a call demanding ₹30 lakh as ransom. Jitender did not take the ransom call seriously. When he found that his son did not return home till evening, he approached the VP Road police station.
Himanshu informed Singhvi about the cops' involvement. The duo panicked and decided to kill Aditya as he might identify one of them. They reportedly murdered him by slitting his wrist. The body was set ablaze and the remains were disposed near the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. On Tuesday evening, the boy's charred body was found about 6km from Panvel near the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
The killer duo were trapped when Jitender found Aditya's slippers in the car that was used for the crime. "The complainant was called in at the police station when we did not get any update on the boy. The complainant came in the same car that was used in the crime. One of the slippers of the boy was found in the car," Prakash said, according to ZeeNews.com.
The police arrested the duo and they later confessed to the crime.
