Lucknow, October 21: In a testimony to the diminishing value of human life for the highly ambitious young minds, a boy murdered his schoolmate for refusing to share the telephone number of his girlfriend in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh. The fine planning and execution of the murder left the cops on a wild-goose chase for nearly 48 hours before they could nail the accused.
The sequence of events date back to October 17 when one Ram Nayak of Anari township lodged an FIR with the local Attraulia police stating that his son Neeraj Kumar (16) was missing since Saturday afternoon. Initial enquiries revealed that a student of class XI at Udyog Vidyalaya Inter College (UVIC), Neeraj was last seen with his friends Deependra and Chintu (names changed). Ram Nayak named the duo as the prime suspects.
In the police action that followed, police managed to trace the body on the outskirts of the town the same evening. Superficial injuries on the person of the deceased – mutiple fracture wounds on the skull – strongly suggested that Neeraj was bludgeoned to death some six to eight hours before the body was traced.
Police were quick to detain Deependra and Chintu and grilled them but to no avail. “Both revealed that they accompanied Neeraj to the crossing but parted ways from there when Neeraj told them that he was going to meet a friend. He however did not name the friend,” senior superintendent of police (SSP) Azamgarh, Ramit Sharma, who personally supervised the investigations, said while talking to media persons.
In the second round of manhunt for the culprit, police zeroed in on Amod Singh (name changed), a final year student of intermediate at UVIC. Amod gave in soon and confessed to the crime. However, what came as a bigger shock for the investigators than cold blooded murder itself was motive that Amod cited. “Actually Amod wanted Neeraj to share the telephone number of a girl friend of his. But Neeraj refused. Enraged by Neeraj’s reply, he planned a conspiracy,” said circle officer (CO) Booranpur, deputy superintendent of police (DySP) Jogendra Kumar, who led the police action on ground.
As a part of the conspiracy, Amod told Neeraj that he had found a small leather bag lying on the road on Friday and had hidden it under a tree on the outskirts of the town. He asked Neeraj to reach the spot on Saturday afternoon. Amod told the police he decided not to accompany Neeraj from his house as he wanted to ensure that the latter was not seen with him. When Neeraj reached the site, he found Amod waiting for him. Amod then handed over a piece of steel to Neeraj, asking him to dig a spot. As Neeraj was busy digging, Amod attacked him with a rod from behind. After Neeraj hit the ground unconscious, Amod allegedly strangled him to ensure that he was dead. At the instance of Amod, police recovered the blood stained steel rod used in the crime.
–Agencies