Hindustan Times (Delhi)

Neighbours murder 12-year-old boy, bury body inside house

- Peeyush Khandelwal peeyush.khandelwal@hindustant­imes.com

In a chilling case, the body of a missing 12-year-old boy was found bundled and buried in a pit inside his neighbour’s house, at Shaheed Nagar on the Delhi-Ghaziabad border.

Ghaziabad Police recovered the body of the victim, Sameer, from the pit on Saturday.

Sameer went missing on the evening of June 5. In the morning the same day, the boy had an altercatio­n with the neighbour’s grandson Innu, when he blew a balloon which burst near the latter’s face.

“Innu’s grandmothe­r Jannati rebuked and threatened Sameer. Later, Sameer went missing in the evening. We launched a search in the entire neighbourh­ood, but our efforts turned futile and Sameer couldn’t be found. We even asked our neighbours, but they denied seeing him,” said Gurfan, the victim’s uncle, adding that they finally filed a missing complaint on Friday.

While returning after offering Namaz on Friday, the family found the main door of their neighbour’s house locked.

“The door did not open till Saturday morning and even the mobile numbers of the neighbours were switched off. This made us suspicious. We called up one of their (neighbours’) relatives, who is a police officer. He summoned Innu’s grandfathe­r Abbas (55) to the police station. On questionin­g, Abbas broke down and revealed to have killed the boy and buried the boy inside their home. When police reached his house, they found a freshly dug pit in the main room. The boy’s dead body was found inside the pit, which was around 2.5 feet deep,” Gurfan said.

Abbas and his three sons run a small cardboard factory in the main room of their house, while the family members stay in a room behind the house.

“The boy’s body had injuries on head and also near his ear. It appears that he was hit on head with some blunt object. There is also a possibilit­y that he was strangled and later bundled and buried inside the small pit. The body has beem sent for post-mortem and more details will be revealed later,” said an officer from Sahibabad police station.

Sameer, a Class 5 student at a government school in Delhi, was the youngest among his five siblings. His father runs a tailor shop that stitches school uniforms, in Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar.

Following the discovery of the dead body, officials deployed a heavy contingent of police at Shaheed Nagar in order to prevent any escalation of law and order. The police arrested Abbas on Saturday and also launched a search for his wife and sons.

“We will now add IPC Sections related to murder to the present case,” said Akash Tomar, superinten­dent of police (city).

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