Manpada police have arrested two accused in connection with the alleged sexual assault and murder of a seven-year-old boy, who was found dead in May this year.
The victim, who stayed with his family in Deslepada in Dombivli (East), went missing on May 24. His body was found a day later in the water tank of a building under construction in the same locality. The post-mortem confirmed that he had been sedated and sexually assaulted before being killed. Police sources said the first breakthrough came through examination of Call Detail Records.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjay Shinde, Zone III, Thane Police, said, “Both the accused have been charged with abduction, unnatural sexual assault, murder and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code, along with relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. They have been remanded in police custody till July 24.”
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An officer who is part of the investigation said, “We were working on the assumption that whoever committed the offence was well versed with the building where the victim's body was found. Based on this, we obtained cell numbers of all the labourers who worked at the building site, and obtained their locations on the day of the victim's disappearance, while also picking them up for questioning. We hit pay dirt when we found that one of the labourers, Ehsaan Alam (22), had been in the victim's immediate vicinity on May 24.”
The investigating team also mapped Mr. Ehsaan's movements using cellular location mapping, tracing him from the victim's residence to the building, which further pointed the needle of suspicion towards him. Mr. Ehsaan was subsequently picked up and questioned at length, after which he allegedly confessed to the crime.
“On the day of the offence, Mr. Ehsaan, a plumber by profession, had visited the victim's building for a job he was hired to do. On his way out, he saw the victim playing by himself and lured him by offering him sweets. He took the victim to the building, where he had worked earlier, gave him a sedative and sexually assaulted him while he was unconscious. When the victim did not wake up for several hours, Mr. Ehsaan thought that the victim was dead and panicked,” the officer said.
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Mr. Ehsaan then called his friend Nadeem Alam (21), also a plumber who had worked at the site, and together, both the accused allegedly threw the victim inside the water storage tank in the building. Unknown to them, the victim was still alive at the time and ultimately died due to drowning, officers said.
Mr. Ehsaan was arrested following his confession on Monday. Police arrested Mr. Nadeem the same day.