Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 2 Aug: A 12-year-old boy was recently abducted while he was returning home from school in Gohaingaon in Lohit district, and eventually killed.
Lohit SP Tumme Amo informed that the incident occurred on 22 July, when the boy was returning home from the school in Gohaingaon when two persons, identified as Najuso Tamai (32) and Govinda Tamang (28), abducted him from Gohaingaon area, and later killed him.
However, the Lohit police came to know about the incident only on 24 July, when the boy’s father, who works as a cattle caretaker, received a ransom call from an unknown number, demanding Rs 15 lakhs to release the boy.
“The boy’s father did not lodge an FIR out of fear that his son would be killed if he involved the police,” Amo informed.
“I came to know about the ransom call, made from mobile phone number 8131019161, from a local source. Though the victim’s father did not officially lodge a complaint, we swiftly constituted a 10-member team to track the caller,” the SP said.
The police traced the owner of the SIM card – a 15-year-old boy who works as a handyman. He was not using his SIM card; it was being used by his relatives.
“On being tracked by the police, the relatives of the SIM card’s owner revealed that a youth had snatched their mobile phone on 24 July,” the SP said.
He informed that the outgoing facility of the SIM card had expired, which compelled Tamai to insert his own SIM card to call the victim’s father.
The police found out from the card detail record (CDR) that one Tamai had called the victim’s father, and later, with information obtained from Facebook, the police identified Tamai and picked him up on the same night.
The SP informed that Tamai revealed during interrogation that his friend Govinda Tamang, a resident of Medo village, was using his mobile phone. The police later picked up Tamang from Medo village to corroborate the lead.
The police said that the ransom calls were made in Assamese, but the duo acted as if they didn’t know Assamese, which led to the police forcing them to repeat the same words that the ransom callers had used. Their recorded voices were played for the victim’s father, who recognised the voices.
Tamang and Tamai later confessed that they had abducted and killed the boy on 22 July because the boy had recognised Tamai’s face when they were making the ransom calls.
The police further informed that Tamai was the mastermind behind the plan to abduct the boy for ransom, in order to pay his debt. He had lured Tamang to join him in the crime.
A case [u/s 137/140(2)(3) BNS] has been registered at the Tezu police station, and the section dealing with murder will be added, the police said, and informed that the matter is still under investigation.
The SP expressed regret over not being able to save the boy as the police received the information two days after the abduction. He appealed to the people of Tezu to cooperate with the police to ensure that exemplary punishment is awarded to the accused.
