Pune: Two youths were arrested and two minors detained on Tuesday for abducting and murdering a 17-year-old boy from Vishrantwadi on December 29, allegedly over an old rivalry. Police said the accused used a girl’s social media profile to lure the teenager to Katraj, where he was killed.
The victim, Amansingh (17), a resident of Tingrenagar, left home on the morning of December 29 saying he was going to work. When he failed to return, his mother, Anita Surendrasing Gachand (44), filed a missing person’s complaint at Vishrantwadi police station on December 31.
A crime branch team led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Nikhil Pingale arrested Prathamesh Chindu Adhal (19) and Nagesh Balaji Dhabale (19), both residents of Shivane, from Belagavi in Karnataka. Two juveniles, aged 16 and 17, were also detained in the case.
Pingale said the missing person’s report was treated as a kidnapping case since the victim was a minor. “We traced his movements through cellphone records and tracked his last location to the Katraj area,” he said.
According to investigators, the accused created or used a girl’s social media account to befriend Amansingh online. After gaining his trust, the ‘girl’ asked him to meet in Katraj. When he arrived there on his scooter, the accused intercepted him and took him to a hilly area near Khed–Shivapur, where they allegedly assaulted him with stones and billhooks, resulting in his death.
Police said the accused told investigators they had an old dispute with the victim dating back to when he lived in Shivane. “They wanted revenge and planned the murder. After killing him, they buried the body in the hills to destroy evidence,” Pingale said, adding that a tehsildar was present during the exhumation.
Investigators are also probing the identity of the girl whose social media account was used and whether the profile was fake or misused by the accused.
The two arrested youths were produced before a court on Tuesday and remanded to police custody till January 9. The two minors were sent to an observation home. Inspector Sampatrao Raut said the victim’s family had shifted from Shivane to Tingrenagar about 15 days before the incident.
