Kingpin behind boy's kidnap, murder wanted ransom to marry lover

Mohammed Javed Shaikh, the main suspect. 

The brutal murder of a 10-year-old kidnapped boy was masterminded by a neighbour who wanted to marry his girlfriend and settle down in Mumbai, police say.

Mohammed Asif Alam, son of M D Abbas, went missing from near his home in Shikaripalya, Hebbagodi, South Bengaluru, on Friday night. The next day, he was found bludgeoned to death with a boulder in a shed at Nanjapura near Jigani. He had been kidnapped by a three-member gang for a ransom of Rs 25 lakh. The boy’s father received the ransom phone call around 10 pm and was warned against going to the police.

But when the father did go to the jurisdictional Hebbagodi police, the mastermind killed the boy for the fear of being caught.

Police arrested two of the suspects — Mohammed Noushad and Siraj — from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, after tracing the ransom call. Their kingpin, identified as Mohammed Javed Shaikh, remained elusive.

Incidentally, Hebbagodi police say, Shaikh had joined Abbas in searching for the boy and played along before the arrest of his accomplices.

After arresting Noushad and Siraj, police launched a manhunt for Shaikh on the basis of phone calls between him and the two others. By now, Shaikh got to know that police were after him.

Police, meanwhile, tracked his phone’s location, which pointed to the shed in Jigani. When police rushed there, there was no trace of Shaikh. Only the boy’s lifeless body was found.

According to Hebbagodi police inspector Gautham J, Shaikh is a native of Bihar and had moved to Bengaluru three years ago. He stayed with an uncle near Abbas’s house.

Shaikh landed a CCTV camera mechanic’s job at a private company but found the earnings inadequate for his dreams. He desired to marry his girlfriend and settle down in Mumbai. That’s how he came up with the idea of kidnapping the boy.

On Friday, he lured the boy with the promise of showing him video games. He knew plenty about video games as he had worked at a gaming shop in Mumbai.

Police believe that this wasn’t the first time that Shaikh had kidnapped someone. He had kidnapped a 13-year-old boy and taken him to a shuttered store. But the boy protested so much that Shaikh had to let him go with a dire warning.