Gruesome murder in Mumbai.
By The American Bazaar Staff
MUMBAI: A kidnapping case involving a 12 year-old boy has ended in tragedy, with the boy’s dismembered remains found in western Kalyan here Sunday morning, and six men currently in police custody.
The remains of Rohan Gucchait were found after an extensive search by local authorities, who knew the boy was missing after his father lodged a report on April 17. The boy was kidnapped by Ishtiyaq Sayyed Shaikh, an electrician who wanted to extort some Rs. 50 lakh from the boy’s father, Uttam, a local jeweler.
According to reports, Uttam received a call in early April demanding a large sum of money, which he ignored. Nearly a fortnight later, Shaikh – who was responsible for the original call, and was working with at least five accomplices – orchestrated the boy’s kidnapping. Uttam discovered on April 17 that his son was missing, and went to the police, directly against the orders of the kidnappers.
Upon realizing that the boy’s father went to the police, Shaikh and his cohorts strangled the boy and used an electric saw to cut up his body, scattering the remains amongst three located in western Kalyan. Shaikh and his accomplices continued to call Uttam, demanding ransom payments, while police scoured the local area for any sign of the boy.
Last week, parts of the boy’s body were located based on tips from locals. Finally, on Sunday, Rohan’s upper-body was found near the APMC flower market, the missing piece of a gruesome human puzzle. All that was left was to find the perpetrators.
Police were able to do this when complaints came in that Shaikh had been missing work, and that he knew the Gucchait family. Police were then able to locate Shaikh, and arrest him along with five accomplices.
The sordid tale is just another in a recent spate of actual and attempted kidnappings plaguing the Indian subcontinent.
In Gandhinagar, a man by the name of Alpesh Valand has allegedly been kidnapped by two of his bosses at the local finance firm he was employed with. According to The Times of India, a report has been filed by Valand’s father to locate Pramukh Patel and Darpan Dholakia, who are accused of having kidnapped Valand because of an ongoing business dispute that the alleged captors believe shorted them by nearly Rs. 3 crore.
Another case, which transpired in Chandigarh last week, involves two employees of a local finance company who allegedly attempted to kidnap two local shopkeepers. The two men, named only as Mukesh and Manoj in a report by the Times, were arrested by local police in the city’s Krishna Market with loaded pistols, and wanted to exact revenge on the two shopkeepers for not paying back a loan given to them two years ago.