The DAV School student found dead on Sunday was murdered by his institution peers.

Three students of DAV School - one of Class X and two of Class IX - were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the murder of Class IX student Ashish Kumar.

The trio had allegedly formed a bike theft gang and eliminated Ashish because he accidentally learnt about one of their operations.

Ashish had gone missing on July 30. His body was recovered a day after from an old house in the Ambika Nagar locality. He was last spotted with one of the arrested students.

The police cracked the case after quizzing the three arrested students several times.

Sharing details with the reporters on Tuesday, Motihari additional superintendent of police Pramod Kumar Mandal said the arrested students had formed a motorbike theft gang.

"Ashish had learnt about a bike theft. Apprehending that he might leak the details of the gang to the police, the three boys and some of their accomplices murdered Ashish," the additional superintendent of police said.

Police are conducting raids to arrest the trio's accomplices. The trio had named them during the series of interrogations.

According to the additional superintendent of police, the "X gang" constituted by the arrested students had lifted about a dozen motorbikes from various places in the past few months and disposed them of successfully.

Ashish was murdered for a motorbike stolen on July 9 by the gang.

The owner of the stolen motorbike, Jitendra Kumar, is posted at Banjaria block in Motihari.

As the trio failed to sell the stolen bike, the Class X boy became a bit worried.

In a state of confusion, he used Ashish's cellphone to call Jitendra on July 27 to tell the latter that his missing motorbike was parked beside a road at Banjaria.

The Class X student came to know about Jitendra's number from some documents kept in the box of the motorbike, the police said.

#After getting his motorbike, Jitendra lodged an FIR with the Banjaria police the same day.

He mentioned the cellphone number from which he was called and informed about the location of his bike in his complaint.

Fearing that Ashish could be detained by the police, the Class X boy and his accomplices decided to murder him, said Town police station house officer Ajay Kumar.