The family members of a boy who was abducted from outside his house in northeast Delhi's Babarpur area and murdered, today alleged that the police not only failed to track down the accused even after they informed them about ransom calls but took more than a month to conclude that he was murdered.
17-year-old Ankit Gupta, a Class 12 student at a private school, lived with his family in northeast Delhi's Babarpur area. "On February 11, he received a call and went outside his house, but he never returned," Sanjay Gupta, the victim's uncle, said today.
"We informed the matter to the police on February 12, the day we received a call from the abductors demanding Rs 1 crore for the safe release of the boy. Later, we negotiated with them and the ransom was settled at Rs 20 lakh, keeping police in the loop," he said.
Police kept laying traps wherever the abductors called the victim's family -- the locations ranging from Old Delhi Railway Station to several spots in northeast Delhi and Ghaziabad -- until the accused finally claimed on February 16 that the boy will not be sent back home.
According to DCP (Northeast) A K Singla, the police had formed 15 teams to rescue the boy and arrest the abductors. The teams are still working to nab the accused at the earliest.
Ankit's uncle further said, on February 16, the abductors also handed over the phone to someone claiming that it was Ankit but the voice did not match at all. When we raised doubts, they said that he was sedated. When we started questioning them, they said that Ankit will never be released and disconnected the call.
"By then they had also sensed that police officials had laid traps every time we went to spots mentioned by them to deliver the ransom amount," he said.
On February 25, the special task force of east district was roped in into the case but the accused could not be tracked. .
On March 20, officials from east Delhi's Shakarpur police station asked the family to come to the police station.
Later, it emerged that body of a boy, whose details matched Ankit's, was found at a village under UP's Gautam Budh Nagar district on February 14, Gupta said.
With further verification, the police, on Tuesday, arrived at the conclusion that the deceased was Ankit.
"We do not suspect the role of anybody in particular but
the abductors were clearly not after money. It is a case of personal enmity and the abductors continued negotiating with us just to mislead the police," Gupta said adding that the police could have saved Ankit's life had they been more active in pursuing the case.
An official privy to the investigation said, the accused are suspected to be known to Ankit. The murder is suspected to have taken place on February 13, following which the body was dumped in a secluded area and found around 1.30 AM on February 14. Investigation is underway.
On February 11, hours before the abduction, Ankit had returned home after appearing in his practical papers in connection with the board exams. His father, Anil Gupta, is a scrap trader, police said.
