A week after five-year-old Yashraj Kumar was kidnapped while playing outside his house at Mangalhat and murdered, the Mangalhat police on Wednesday arrested his distant relative Vinod Kumar in the murder case.
Vinod wanted to extort Rs. 20,000 ransom from the boy’s parents, the West zone DCP V. Satyanarayana said.
“He also bore a grudge against the boy’s mother Deepika as earlier she hit him with a chappal for lodging complaint with police that led to arrest of two of her brothers,” the DCP explained.
A bike mechanic, Vinod wanted to secure release of his bike which was taken away by financiers for defaulting in payments and planned to abduct Yashraj and demand ransom from the latter’s parents.
Earlier, he had lodged a complaint with Shahinayatgunj police alleging that Deepika’s brothers (Yashraj’s maternal uncles) defamed his family by accusing his mother of having illicit relationship with a person.
Furious over the arrest of her brothers Deepika hit him with a chappal.
“Both this incident and the urge to extort ransom drove him to abduct the boy. But he strangled the boy to death with an electric wire having got drunk heavily at Peeram tank in Narsingi,” the DCP said.
