Boy kidnapped & murdered, accused held after custody slip

A 25-year-old man, who has escaped from police custody after being arrested for allegedly kidnapping and murdering a seven-year-old boy from Mumbra here, was arrested again today, police said.
The accused, Santosh Ramrut Sharma, was arrested on November 18 on the suspicion of kidnapping the victim, Ranjan Bhagat, but he had escaped from the police custody yesterday.
However, he was once again arrested today, following which he admitted to killing the minor, Thane police spokesperson Sukhada Narkar said.
The victim's body was today recovered from a room in Mumbra, where the accused had dumped it and locked it from outside. However, the motive of the murder was not yet known.

According to police, the boy, a resident of Kausa of Mumbra was kidnapped on November 12, following which his mother lodged a complaint with police, who registered a case of kidnapping against an unidentified person.
"Later, the boy's mother received several phone calls on her cell, in which the caller told her that her son was kept in a locality named Sri Lanka, located on Kausa Mumbra road, and told her to take him away," police said.

"On November 17, the woman once again got a call stating that her son was kept in a hut and she should come and collect him from there. After this, she approached the police and told them that she suspected that one Santosh Sharma was behind her son's abduction. The next day, police arrested him," police said.

Police got his custody till November 25. During the interrogation, Sharma said he was ready to show the location where he has kept the boy. Accordingly, personnel of the Child Protection Unit accompanied the accused to a hillock at Devripada near Sri Lanka locality at about 6 pm on Wednesday.
"At that time he was handcuffed and the other end of the handcuff was held by a police constable. While the police team and the arrested accused were walking, the accused gave a jolt and pulled the constable. Both of them fell and came sliding down the hillock. In the process, the accused escaped and vanished in the dark," police said.

The accused escaped with the handcuffs on. Despite a search, he could not be traced last night. However, during a search operation, he was arrested this morning from Mumbra bypass.
Following the arrest, he revealed to the police that he has murdered the boy and kept the body inside a room. The police then recovered the body.
Further investigation into the case is on.