Patna, Dec. 24: A 10-year-old schoolboy was strangled to death allegedly by four teenagers who wanted to extract ransom from his businessman-father without informing him of his son’s death.

Amarjeet Kumar, a class V student of KPS Memorial High School in Gardanibagh, had stepped out of his south Patna home in Saristabad around 1.30pm on Monday to buy a shuttle cork. That was the last the family saw of him. The same evening, his father, Akhilesh Prasad, a land dealer, started receiving ransom calls, prompting him to file a police complaint. By then, Amarjeet was already dead.

Patna police recovered Amarjeet’s body, stashed in a jute sack, late last night under the Chipra bridge. Two of the boys who allegedly plotted the murder were arrested after police traced the ransom calls made to Amarjeet’s father. The other two are absconding.

Among the two arrested is Aditya Kumar, 13, a student of the same school Amarjeet went to. The other boy in custody is Suraj Kumar Pathak, a class XII student of another Patna school. Those absconding are Vikas, a class VIII student, and Luv Kumar Choubey, an ITI student in Patna.

The police said Aditya said during questioning that the boys had lured Amarjeet to go with them by promising him an iPod. They then took him to a lodge in old Jakanpur area on the outskirts of Patna where Luv stayed and apparently killed him.

Patna SSP B.S. Meena said the boys had it all planned. “They had planned to kill the boy first and dispose of the body. They felt that if he was not killed, the police could track them easily and Amarjeet could also escape.

“They strangulated the boy on December 20…. There are burn marks on the body, which suggests they tried to set it on fire. They then started calling the family for ransom,” Meena said.

Police said the two boys were arrested after constant surveillance of the mobile phone they were calling from. “These boys had stolen a cell phone and were using it for calling up Amarjeet’s family. The police were constantly tracking it…. leading to their arrest,” Meena said.