A missing youth’s parents on Thursday identified a decomposed body that was found four days ago as their son amid allegations of how police had ignored leads that might have saved him.

Sudipto Bhattacharya alias Babai, a 22-year-old employee of a chain marketing company, left his Baranagar home in his shorts around 4pm on December 17 to play football but didn’t return. His mother Dalia tried contacting him on his cellphone that night and found it switched off.

Father Sukamal, 48, the superintendent of a boarding school at Contai in East Midnapore district, kept dialling that number over the next couple of days and got through once on December 20. The voice at the other end was, however, not Sudipto’s.

“If you want to see your son alive, you have to pay us Rs 3 lakh,” the unidentified person said.

He hung up before the anxious father could ask where the money should be delivered.

Sukamal, who had earlier filed a missing diary with Baranagar police station, immediately reported the ransom demand to the police but they allegedly didn’t bother tracking the cellphone.

Sudipto’s body was found in a gunny bag with his throat slit and multiple stab wounds near the central railway bridge at Bally on Sunday, though nobody was to know until Thursday that it was him.

Sukamal found Sudipto’s cellphone ringing a second time on Monday. He pleaded with the person who had received the call to release his son, saying he was ready to pay the ransom. The suspected kidnapper retorted that he should have paid the money earlier if he was anxious about his son. He again hung up without giving Sukamal the chance to ask any question.

The cellphone was found switched off from then on.

The police allegedly swung into action only after Sukamal informed them about his second interaction with the suspected kidnapper.

Four youths were rounded up on Thursday on the basis of the call details of Sudipto’s cellphone.

A senior officer of North 24-Parganas police said Baranagar police station had been “constantly tracking” Sudipto’s cellphone after being informed about the second conversation between his father and the suspected kidnapper on Monday. “But we found the cellphone switched off.”

All this while, Sudipto’s body was lying in a hospital morgue.

His death was confirmed only when Sukamal and Dalia identified their son from a photograph of the body that had been found in Bally, around around 5km from Baranagar.

Sukesh Kumar Jain, the additional superintendent of police of Howrah, said the four arrested youths were friends of Sudipto.

“All four were arrested from Sinthee, in the Baranagar area. We suspect they played a role in the murder.”

The officer said more arrests were likely in the next 24 hours.

A senior officer of Calcutta police who specialises in probing kidnapping cases admitted that Baranagar police station should have tracked Sudipto’s cellphone from December 19, when his father filed a missing diary.

“This is a standard procedure when a missing complaint is lodged. Tracking the tower location is the easiest way of finding out where the person is,” he said.