FB friend kills teen for ransom in Punjab

Sukhmeet Bhasin
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, November 21

The body of a 15-year-old boy who was yesterday kidnapped from Rampura Phul, 35 km from here, was found near an animal carcass dump this morning. 

Dushyant Garg, alias Anmol, of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar was allegedly killed by one of his Facebook friends, along with an associate. Both accused were arrested from Rampura Phul. 

IGP, Bathinda range, MF Farooqui, and SSP Dr Nanak Singh said: “Two persons kidnapped Dushyant (a Class XI student) from near his house around 4.30 pm. When he did not return home by 8 pm, his family started searching for him. Later, they lodged a ‘missing person’ complaint.”

The kidnappers reportedly rang up Anmol’s father Vivek Kumar, a grocery shop owner, around 9.30 pm and demanded a ransom of Rs 2 crore. When the family expressed its inability to pay the sum, the kidnappers settled for Rs 80 lakh.

During the second phone call when the ransom was reduced, Vivek told them he only had Rs 35,000 and could arrange the rest of the money by Wednesday morning.

The family then sounded the police. Deciding to lay a trap, the police told the family members to agree to the kidnappers’ demand.

The family members told kidnappers they had only Rs 3 lakh that they could give to them. The accused told them to put the money in a bag and leave that at the entry point of the fourth bogie behind the engine of Kalka Mail that was to arrive at the Rampura railway station at 12.30 am.

Meanwhile, a trap was laid and police boarded all bogies of the Kalka Mail in civvies. A bag containing the money was left at the designated place. The accused were arrested as soon as they came to pick the bag. They were identified as Jaspal Singh of Kararwala village in Bathinda and Harsh Gandhi of Ludhiana.

The accused confessed to the crime and the murder weapon was recovered too, the IGP said. He said accused Jaspreet Singh was in touch with the victim through Facebook. He had formed a student union group and Dushyant was its member. They had taken Dushyant with them on the pretext of clicking his photos that he could upload on social media.