RAJKOT: The kidnap and murder of a 19-year-old collegian from Anjar town has turned out to be a cold-blooded crime by his neighbour, who had been plotting his abduction for ransom since 2017-18 after going broke.
On Tuesday, the Kutch police arrested Rajendrakumar alias Raju Kaliya (59) and his partner in crime Kisan Maheshwari (40), who strangled timber businessman son Yash Tomar and buried him in a pit at an isolated spot near Adipur on November 6.
What surprised cops was the sinister planning of the duo, who had dug the pit to bury Yash's body 45 days ago. They also chose a spot that was not just isolated but full of acacia trees behind a temple on the outskirts of Adipur so that the body couldn't be found easily.
Kaliya was caught from Ahmedabad's Gota area where his wife and two daughters live while Maheshwari was nabbed from Antarjal village.
Kaliya had been stalking Yash for one month to note his entire day's routine, the routes he used to the Adipur-based college, people he met regularly, and others. On the day of the crime, Kaliya was waiting for Yash on a road in Anjar and asked him for a lift saying that his vehicle had broken down. On some pretext, he took Yash to the place where the pit was dug. When Yash dropped him and was returning, Kaliya did not allow him and the latter started talking to Maheshwari who was already present there.
But the duo somehow got scared that they would be caught and decided to murder him.
"Kaliya bludgeoned Yash on his head with a heavy plastic pipe and strangled him with a rope when he fainted. After he died, they buried him in the pit," said Sagar Bagmar, superintendent of police, Kutch (east).
Kaliya then called Yash's mother using the victim's phone and demanded Rs 1.25 crore for his release.
Bagmar said Kaliya, who was Yash's neighbour for many years in Anjar's Bageshwari Society, knew that the family was well-off.
In 2017-18, Kaliya suffered heavy losses in the business of stitching seat covers. Thus, he started Yash's kidnap plan.
As part of the plan, Kaliya had even purchased a sim card under some dummy name five years ago but activated it only for the crime.
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