Police found the dead body of third-grader Shuvam Sah in a suitcase at the counter of Super Sita Yatayat in Kalanki. [break]
Police have arrested seven people so far for kidnapping and murdering the kid. Police said ransom was the sole intention behind the kidnapping.
Below is a blow-by-blow account of what happened as narrated by his uncle, cousin and the police.
Shuvam, who lived in a rented apartment at Sitapaila-1, Bafal, with his cousin Bijay Sah, left for school at 9 am on November 18.
A good student who stood second in school exams, Shuvam regularly returned from school by 4:30 pm, Bijay said. That day he didn´t.
By the time he should have returned from school, someone was making repeated phone calls to Shuvam´s father Ram Bhagat Sah in Janakpur.
“Ram Bhagat had left his cell phone in the grocery store that we run together in Janakpur,” said Kali Ram Sah, elder brother of Ram Bhagat and father of Bijay. “There were about seven missed calls,” added Kali Ram, who also runs a brick factory with his younger brother in Janakpur.
Ram Bhagat arrived at the grocery store at 4:45 pm and answered his phone. The caller said his son was with him.
“I told Ram Bhagat to switch off his phone and rang up Bijay,” said Kali Ram.
From Bijay, the family learnt that Shuvam had not returned from school. Kali Ram then told Bijay to go and check whether he was still in school. The family took the caller seriously only after learning that Shuvam had not even made it to school that day.
Ram Bhagat caught a bus the same evening and arrived in Kathmandu in the wee hours on Saturday. He filed a complaint at Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Hanumandhoka.
The police stepped in and began guiding Ram Bhagat.
“We advised Ram Bhagat on how to respond to the phone calls and deal with ransom bargaining,” said Superintendent of Police Shyam Khatri, acting chief of the division. “All the while, we were working to trace the caller,” Khatri added.
The caller first demanded Rs 5 million, then Rs 4 million and eventually Rs 2.5 million.
While police detained and interrogated many suspects living in Bafal area right from Saturday, they managed to make a breakthrough only on Tuesday when they arrested one of the culprits, said SP Khatri. Based on the person´s statement, police arrested six more people.
The crime´s mastermind is Santosh Pandit, 26, of Janakpur, who faces a kidnapping case in Janakpur as well. His accomplices in the crime are Devendra Thakur, 23, a barber from Mahottari, Ramji Thakur, 24, a barber from Mahottari, Dharmendra Thakur, 18, a barber from Sarlahi, Lal Babu Thakur, 20, a barber from Mahottari, Dipak Balami, 18, of Makwanpur, and Ashish Dura, 20, of Tanahu.
All of them are in police custody.
Bargaining even after murder
In police interrogation, the accused have admitted that they murdered the boy on November 20, two days after kidnapping him. Even after the murder, they were bargaining for ransom. The bargaining was going on until Tuesday.
The kidnappers had kept the boy in a rented room of Dharmendra at Samakhushi Kapurdhara, murdered him on Sunday and packed the dead body in a suitcase. Police say he was murdered by being forced to inhale lethal amounts of chloroform.
The day they killed the boy, the killers left the suitcase containing his body at the counter of Super Sita Yatayat at Kalanki.
Staffers at the Yatayat did not touch the suitcase until Wednesday believing someone would come to claim it. Police got hold of the suitcase on Wednesday based on information provided by the arrested.
Police say the kidnappers planned to kill the boy right from the beginning as the boy knew them.
“They will be charged with murder,” said SP Khatri.
The eldest among Ram Bhagat´s three sons, Shuvam had been living in Kathmandu for the past one-and-a-half years.
According to Bijay, the two had returned to Kathmandu on November 3 after celebrating Dashain and Tihar festivals.
“We used to go to them for getting haircuts,” said Bijay when asked about the kidnappers, four of whom worked as barbers in Bafal.
“We had moved from Milantole in Sitapaila to Bafal just three months ago,” he added, sobbing.
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