Delhi Police have arrested two people in a 9-year-old boy’s murder case whose body was found in a sack in the national capital’s Uttam Nagar area.

The arrested persons have been identified as Umesh Kumar and Naveen Mehto, both labourers working at a construction site.

According to the police, a complaint was registered on October 11 at the Uttam Nagar police station regarding a boy who went missing while playing in a park in front of the house. A case under section 363 (kidnapping) of the IPC was initially registered and the investigation was taken up.

The parents of the missing child then received a ransom call in which the kidnappers demanded Rs 5 lakh. Through the number, the police were able to locate a person named Bipin Bhandari, in whose name the mobile number was registered.

When a team of policemen checked Bhandari’s house, six other labourers residing on the same floor were also apprehended.

A search of the second floor in the same building was initiated on October 13 and finally the body of the missing child, identified as Ankush Kumar, was recovered from there, having being dumped in the garbage adjacent to the room of one of the apprehended labourers Umesh Kumar.

A police team also inspected the spot from where the body was recovered and all the CCTV cameras in the vicinity were thoroughly checked.

Finally, during interrogation, Umesh Kumar broke down and narrated the whole incident. He said he was in dire need of money and also due to his addiction to drugs, he along with his friend, the second accused Naveen Mehto who is also a drug addict, had stolen the SIM card of Bipin Bhandari and used it in the handset of one Satender Bhagat who was residing adjacent to his rented room building.

Both the accused Naveen and Umesh planned to kidnap the child as suggested by Umesh, because he used to visit the park where the child played and had struck up an acquantaince with the boy. They also knew that the father of Ankush Kumar was a labour supplier to the construction sites and they thought they could make a handsome amount of money out of the kidnapping.

On October 11, both of them kidnapped the child from the park and brought him to their rented accommodation after which they strangled him. After making sure that he was dead they put the body in a plastic bag and dumped it near their rented room.