A seven-year-old child has been killed after being kidnapped by three youth for ransom in Manikganj.
The child was identified as Al-Amin, whose father Shahidul Islam filed a missing report on August 29 with Singair police station.
The accused Hridoy Hossain, 19, Saddam Hossain, 17, and Nazmul Hossain, 16, were arrested by the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) on Friday.
At a press conference at the PBI headquarters in Dhanmondi on Saturday afternoon, Additional Superintendent of Police of Manikganj PBI unit, Jahangir Alam said, since their (the accused) families could not afford to buy them motorcycles, they decided to kidnap and kill someone, and then use the victim’s clothing as proof to collect ransom money from the victim’s family.
They wanted to buy motorcycles to be noticed by their local political leaders, as they thought they would have more political clout if they had motor-bikes.
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They kidnapped Al-Amin on August 28 and planned to demand the ransom from his father, after killing the child. But they were unable to do so because Saddam, who was assigned to get a new SIM card for the call, could not manage to do so on the day of the murder, added Jahangir Alam.
On August 31, locals spotted parts of Al-amin’s clothing in a bamboo bush at Tema Mia's abandoned house in the village of Berundi of Singair upazila, Manikganj. After removing loose soil on suspicion, they discovered the body of the child wrapped in a plastic bag.
They first went to a hotel in Savar and called Al-amin’s father from a hotel employee's phone to demand a ransom of Tk3,00,000, but since they were afraid of getting caught, they left Savar for the Benapole border at Jessore that day, added the ASP.
The criminals tried to flee to India, but failed as security was tight at the border.
Hence, they moved to Rajbari where they were caught by the PBI while trying to contact family members, PBI officer Jahangir Alam added.
