Shubham Kumar

Patna, Nov. 18: The recovery of a decomposed body and a skull triggered a puzzle for police and the family of a BJP leader, whose son is missing for the past one week.

Shubham (15), the son of BJP leader Devendra Kumar Lal, went missing on November 10. The police today recovered portions of a skull and a mutilated body clad in clothes that the boy wore on the fateful day.

Patna senior superintendent of police Alok Kumar said: “At this moment, the police cannot say with certainty that the remains recovered were those of Shubham. A DNA test will be conducted. The police are questioning four friends of the boy.”

According to a missing diary Lal lodged with Rupaspur police station on November 11, the Class X student of Sri Bihar School left his Amba Colony residence in Rukkanpura around 11am with four friends to take a dip in the Ganga at Kutchery Ghat on Kartik Purnima. But he never returned.

The Lals accused Shubham’s four friends of conspiracy after the body was found clad in Shubham’s clothes.

“I refuse to believe that my son is dead. The police, who have detained the four boys, are saying that my son died because of drowning. The boys have also claimed the same before the police. But I am sure that my son is still alive and these four have hatched some kind of conspiracy,” Lal told The Telegraph today.

Police sources said Shubham’s friends — Vishal, Amit, Sandeep and Shubham — had accompanied him to Kutchery Ghat around 11.30am on November 10 to take bath in the Ganga.

“When the boy did not return home that night, the family lodged a missing diary with the police on November 11. A search operation was launched and in course of the investigation, Shubham’s friends were detained for questioning. They claimed that Shubham had drowned while taking a bath and that they could not trace him even after a frantic search. All the four were so terrorised that they chose to remain silent and returned home,” a police officer at Rupaspur police station said.

But the Lal family refused to believe the boys’ version.

Shubham’s father countered: “A shopkeeper of our colony saw Shubham buying paan masala from a betel shop near Amba Colony around 5.30pm on November 10. Then, how can the police and Shubham’s friends claim that he drowned around noon while taking bath? Moreover, other people were also taking bath at the ghat in the presence of security personnel. Why was the matter not reported then and there? Moreover, Shubham had called up his uncle in New Delhi around 1pm the same day. We believe that the boys are lying and the police need to bring out the truth and recover my son. Nobody can drown in the shallow water at the ghat.”

A Rupaspur police station officer said: “Late last evening, the police took each of Shubham’s friends to Kutchery Ghat in turns. All of them pointed at the same place from where Shubham had disappeared. This morning, after a prolonged search operation, the police recovered the body and a part of a skull partially eaten up by dogs. The Lals identified the clothes on the body.”