Eye gouged out, thumb & foot severed: Missing UP village head’s mutilated body found after 9 days; kin suspect foul play

MEERUT: The mutilated body of a village head -- with one eye gouged out, a thumb and part of a foot severed and fingernails pulled out -- was recovered from a vacant field in the Salempur area of Bulandshahr on Sunday, nine days after he had gone missing. While the family alleged kidnapping and murder after seeing the condition of the body, police said doctors attributed the injuries to animal bites."The cause of death remains unknown as per the postmortem report, and the viscera have been preserved. The injuries on the body were due to animal bites. The man had likely been dead for more than 48 hours, and the body was dumped there, after which decomposition and animal activity set in. A case is being registered, and further investigation is underway," Bulandshahr SSP Dinesh Kumar Singh told TOI.Prahlad Singh, 65, a resident of Samaspur village under Chhatari police station limits in Bulandshahr, went missing on Feb 7 after he went out of his house in Awas Vikas Colony. A retired administrative officer, he had won the gram pradhan election in 2021 after taking voluntary retirement from Dibai tehsil.His son Harveer Singh, a stenographer at Aligarh DM office, said his father had left that morning to visit the village. A neighbour dropped him at the roadways bus stand. When he neither reached Samaspur nor returned home by evening, the family lodged a missing complaint at Bulandshahr Nagar Kotwali.SP (city) Shankar Prasad said a roadways bus ticket from Kaushambi depot — issued on Feb 7 at 11:03 am for travel from Bulandshahr to Ahmadgarh — was found in his pocket, along with Rs 8,335 cash. A bag containing clothes was also recovered nearby.Meanwhile, family members alleged police inaction after the missing report was filed. "No serious effort was made to trace him," they alleged. Police, however, said search teams were deployed soon after the complaint was registered. "We are analysing CCTV footage, call detail records and other evidence to establish the sequence of events. We expect a breakthrough soon," SSP Singh said.