Pune: A four-year-old local girl, who went missing on June 28, was found killed with the police today recovering her half burnt body which was found buried near Murtijapur town in Akola district, around 600 kms from here, the police said.
Police yesterday arrested Shubham Jamnik (21) and Pratik Sathale (23) under various sections of the IPC for allegedly abducting and killing the child, a resident of Dighi in Pune, for the ransom of Rs 5 lakh.
Parents of the girl had lodged a complaint with the Dighi police station after she went missing on June 28, said senior police inspector Khanderao Khaire.
One of the accused, Jamnik, who hails from Murtijapur, is a tenant of the girl’s father.
“During the investigation, we suspected the role of Jamnik and his friend Sathale. Following a sustained interrogation, the duo spilled the beans and confessed to have killed the girl on the same day after abducting her,” Khaire said.
Jamnik and Sathale smothered the girl using a pillow and dumped her body in their four-wheeler, before joining her family members who were searching for her, he said.
“In order to destroy the evidence, the duo left for Murtijapur and after reaching there, they set the girl’s body on fire and buried it near a small village in Murtijapur tehsil,” the police officer said.
On the motive behind the crime, he said the accused were in a dire need of money and hatched a plan to extort money from the girl’s father who runs a grocery shop in the area.
“During the interrogation, the accused told us that they wanted to extort Rs 5 lakh from the parents of the girl, but strangely did not make any call to demand the money,” said Khaire.
When asked why the duo didn’t call the girl’s parents for ransom, the officer said the matter is still under investigation.
—PTI