New Delhi: Two siblings, who went missing three days ago, were found dead near a railway track in central Delhi, police said Saturday. Three people were detained after the victims’ father raised suspicion about a neighbour’s involvement.
Victims’ father Manoj Kumar, who works in a share-brokerage firm, received about seven ransom calls demanding Rs3 million (Dh200,552) after his school children went missing, a police officer said.
“The bodies of Mansij and his sister Yashvi, aged seven and five respectively, were recovered from near the railway track in front of Pragati Maidan power station at around 9.30 am Saturday morning,” a police officer said.
The children had been missing from their school, Mother Convent School, in the Mandawali area of east Delhi since February 26 afternoon.
The bodies were decomposed and some parts seemed to have been bitten away by animals, police said.
“Their identification was done on the basis of their school dress,” said an officer, adding that three people had been detained, he said.
Following the recovery of bodies, people staged a protest outside the Mandawali police station and demanded justice for the family and arrest of the accused.
D.K. Gupta, additional deputy commissioner of police (East), tried to calm the agitating people and promised action in the case.
“Their mother would usually get the children back from school, but on that day [when children went missing] someone had locked her inside the house. After the door was opened by neighbours, she went to the school only to learn that a motorcycle-borne man had already taken the children,” the minors’ grandfather, Sundar Singh, told IANS.
According to him, the children’s mother Yogita informed her husband Manoj Kumar about the incident.
Sundar Singh said that the first ransom call was received on Yogita’s mobile phone Tuesday evening after the children went missing from school.
“By Thursday night, the family received about seven phone calls from the abductors, demanding money for the release of the two children,” Gupta said.
“The calls were made from separate local phone booths located around two kilometres from the house,” he said.
The victims’ family members alleged school’s negligence behind their abduction.
“Their mother used to pick them daily from the school for the past one year. But the school teachers handed over the children to a person, who was unknown,” said Amit, an uncle of the siblings.
