People take to the streets and gherao the police station protesting against the kidnap and murder of the 11-year-old boy in Pattamundai township on Wednesday.Telegraph picture

Kendrapara, March 7: The body of an 11-year-old schoolboy kidnapped for ransom on March 4 was retrieved today from the Hansua river in Rajnagar, triggering tension in Pattamundai township with local people taking to the streets in protest against inept handling of the case.

The protesters ransacked the house of one of the accused persons and blocked traffic for nearly six hours on the Cuttack-Chandbali highway.

Five youths, who were old acquaintance with the victim’s family, have been taken into custody for killing the boy.

The arrested youths, all of them in their early twenties, have been identified as Siba Prasad Rout, Sujit Pradhan, Sai Prasad Patra, Dipu Pradhan and Ashok Mallick.

All of them, barring one, are graduates. The accused persons have confessed to the crime and told the police that they had killed the boy after losing hopes of getting the ransom amount.

As the boy was known to them, they feared that he would identify them in the event of his release, the police said. Sujit had picked up the boy from Praharajpur on a motorbike.

The boy went with him as he used to frequent Sujit’s house. Later, four others accomplices joined Sujit.

They had made calls to his family, demanding a ransom of Rs 5 lakh. The boy’s father works as a plumber in Dubai.

Kendrapara superintendent of police Sarthak Sadangi said: “The decomposed body of the boy, a native of Praharajpur, was retrieved today. The abductors killed the child by tying him with a towel and throwing him into the river.”

Ransom was the sole motive behind the crime. The fear of getting caught had led them to kill the abducted boy. The police intercepted them by using the electronic tracking system from cell phone calls made to the victim’s family members.

The youths have been arrested from Bhubaneswar, Sadangi said.

There was complete shutdown of shops and commercial establishments as angry people decried callousness on part of local police. They had laid siege to the local police station.