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| The house of slain businessman Ashish Kumar at Maharajganj in Patna. Picture by Sachin |
Patna, Feb. 16: Crime reared its ugly head on the eve of the Global Summit that will focus on changed Bihar, with a city businessman found murdered in Biharsharif.
Another trader was abducted from Patna on Wednesday evening and a price of Rs 7 lakh set for his release. He was, however, freed in Chhapra late on Thursday.
The lifeless body of Ashish Kumar, 32, a businessman from Chailitand area of Maharajganj, was found in Biharsharif of Nalanda district, some 60km from the state capital. A police patrol team had found the body, which had been dumped behind a petrol pump. The police then chose to partially bury the body under a heap of sand and mud near the Rajgir police station, saying the technique was good for preservation.
Ashish, the youngest of two brothers and two sisters, was a distributor of incense sticks. He married two years ago and has a three-month old daughter.
Around 2.30pm on Monday, Ashish received a phone call at his home and left hurriedly without informing his family where he was going. Rajgir police say his body was found on Tuesday and a post-mortem was carried out the same evening, which showed that Ashish had been strangulated. Patna police learnt about it on Wednesday, following which they informed the family members.
His father Jai Prakash Singh, who brought back the body early today, has lodged an FIR against one Ravi Shankar alias Heera accusing him of the murder.
“The Alamganj police on Tuesday evening took out the call records of the mobile phone of my son and found out about Heera, who is a resident of the area and is a land broker by profession. Ashish had given Rs 2 lakh to him some time ago and was preparing to ask Heera to return the money. The police went to his house but it was locked and he and his family members are missing. We came back with his body around 2am today and the last rites have been performed. We want the man to be arrested as soon as possible,” Jai Prakash Singh told The Telegraph.
The crime spiral continued with another businessman, Ranjit Kumar Singh, going missing from the AN College area of the state capital. Singh, a resident of Madhepura, had a business of setting up mobile phone towers.
Singh was freed by his kidnappers on Thursday night at Chhapra and three of his captors surrendered before the DSP (rural).
Police suspect the kidnappers may be business partners of Singh. Singh’s uncle received a phone call last night asking for a ransom of Rs 7 lakh. The call was made from Singh’s cell phone.