Hindustan Times (Bathinda)

AMBALA TEEN KILLS 5YROLD GIRL

Class11 boy joined police search after killing the girl living in his neighbourh­ood

- Dev Sarup Mathur letters@hindustant­imes.com ■

AMBALA :A five-year-old student of Cecil Convent School in the Ambala Cantonment area was killed near her house in Boh village late on Wednesday night by a teenager of the same village.

The victim, identified as Vaishnavi Sood, was the daughter of a provisions store owner Amit Sood.

According to a resident of the village, Dev Dutt, the child, who had been playing outside her house, became untraceabl­e at about 4.30 pm. The family launched a frantic search but could not find her. At 8.30 the neighbour received a call from a phone with a UP number, demanding ₹20 lakh ransom for release of the child.

The family had also uploaded a picture of missing child on social media and the village of over 10,000 was on its toes. Police sounded the alert on borders with Uttar Pradesh and asked the cyber cell to trace the caller. A little past midnight it was found that though the number was of Uttar Pradesh, the call had been made from the same village.

The police then cordoned the village and launched a massive hunt. The body of the child was found in a house in the village, and police have taken into custody a 16-year-old boy, a class 11 student of a local school, for the killing.

According to police the boy had panicked after making ransom calls from four different phones, due to the massive police movement around the area. He killed the child and to hoodwink the police joined the search after hiding the body.

They said that due to his suspicious movements he was questioned following which he divulged the details.

The child’s father Amit Sood said the accused boy is a relative of one of his employees, and had come to stay in the village from Varanasi with his sister a fortnight back. His sister and her husband had gone to Varanasi and since then the accused had

THE BOY HAD PANICKED DUE TO MASSIVE POLICE MOVEMENT IN THE AREA, AFTER MAKING RANSOM CALLS FROM FOUR DIFFERENT PHONES

been having food with the Sood family.

Evidently, since he had food with the family, the child Vaishnavi was unsuspicio­us and the boy probably did not have any trouble getting her to go with him.

The body has been handed over to the parents after the post-mortem, and further investigat­ions are on.

 ?? HT PHOTO ?? Police investigat­ing the case in Ambala.
HT PHOTO Police investigat­ing the case in Ambala.
 ??  ?? Vaishnavi Sood, the victim
Vaishnavi Sood, the victim

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