Patna, Jan. 3: A day after the Bihar cops learnt about the murder of a four-year-old abducted boy of Vaishali, the news of the killing of another five-year-old child under similar circumstances shook the police top brass.

Three teenagers masterminded the murder of the Vaishali boy — Neeraj Kumar. Two youths were involved in the abduction and killing of the Gaya boy, Golu. Both were killed the day they were abducted and the body of neither have been recovered yet. In both the cases, the accused confessed to their crime.

Anshu Kumar and Ravi Kumar, arrested from the Buddha Colony area in Patna last night in connection with the abduction of Golu, confessed to have killed the boy around 4pm on December 22, the day they kidnapped him. Golu was kidnapped from his house at Nayi Sadak area under the Civil Lines police station in Gaya on December 22. During interrogation, Anshu and Ravi, both 17-year-old, confessed to have killed Golu, the son of scrap dealer Jeetender Kumar.

Gaya City superintendent of police Daljeet Singh told The Telegraph the child had disappeared from his house on the morning of December 22.

“He was playing in front of his house when he vanished. The boys who were arrested yesterday confessed during interrogation that they had killed Golu by strangling him around 4pm the same day. After killing the boy, they buried his body on the banks of Falgu river near Gaya town. Then, they started calling Golu’s father for ransom,” Singh said. “We thoroughly searched the river bank but the body of Golu could not be traced. A local resident told the police he had seen some dogs tearing apart at a child’s body some five days ago,” Singh added.

“While Anshu is a tenant at Jeetender’s house, Ravi is his friend. Both of them had planned to extract money from Golu’s father. Once they killed Golu and disposed of his body, they started demanding a ransom of Rs 3 lakh. .The police had been tracking the calls from their cellphones and arrested them yesterday. Till now, the two have not said anything about the involvement of any other person in the case,” Singh said.

Back-to-back abductions and murders of kids have triggered serious posers on the law and order situation of the state. On January 2, Hajipur police arrested three teenagers for kidnapping and killing Neeraj. On December 24, the police recovered the body of 10-year-old Amarjeet, a resident of Gardanibagh in Patna. Three teenagers, one of them a schoolmate of the boy, who had abducted Amarjeet on December 20 and killed him a few hours later, were arrested.

Bihar director-general of police Neel Mani said identifying gangs involved in kidnapping was not easy. “The police have announced the formation of a special operation group to deal with the cases of kidnapping for ransom,” Neel Mani said.

The state police headquarters has issued a directive to the superintendents of police to visit schools and ask students to keep their parents posted on their whereabouts.