A 14-year-old boy in Gorakhpur, the stronghold of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath, was allegedly kidnapped and killed after a ransom of Rs 1 crore had been demanded from his father who had recently sold land.

The body of Balram Gupta, whisked away in a car by four men when he was playing with friends in front of his house in Pipraich on Sunday, was found in a bush about 20km away, on Monday evening.

Police said one of the kidnappers had called Balram’s father Mahajan Gupta, a paan shop owner, thrice on Sunday and demanded Rs 1 crore as ransom. Mahajan had recently sold a plot for Rs 20 lakh.

Three suspects have been arrested, of whom one is a property dealer. The other two are chicken and mobile phone sellers.

“The children who were playing with my son outside our house had told me that four persons had come in a car and dragged him into it and sped away around noon on Sunday. I received three ransom calls around 1pm and informed the police,” Mahajan, who also has three daughters, told reporters after his son was found dead by the police.

The initial post-mortem report suggests an intoxicant had been injected into the boy’s body, which was wrapped in two plastic bags.

Arvind Kumar Pandey, the additional superintendent of Gorakhpur North, said: “We have arrested three kidnappers and are looking for the fourth.”

Gorakhpur is the home district of Adityanath, who had represented the constituency for long in Parliament.

Assault charge on cops

Police in Kanpur have failed to trace a youth who was kidnapped 10 days ago and have been accused of brutally assaulting his brother in an attempt to implicate him, the second time in a week grave allegations have been levelled against cops in the Uttar Pradesh district in an abduction case.

Brijesh Pal, 25, who works in an agency that weighs trucks on highways for the levy of toll, was reported missing on the night July 16. His family had been in a state of shock and had kept silent but felt emboldened to speak up after the family of another Kanpur youth, Sanjeet Yadav, last week accused the police of supervising the payment of a Rs 30-lakh ransom to kidnappers 17 days after Sanjeet had been killed.

Brijesh’s youngest brother Mukesh, who has been left with a fractured arm and cannot get out of bed because of the assault allegedly by the police, told reporters on Monday: “The police had registered a case of kidnapping on the complaint of my eldest brother Rajesh on July 17. The next day, they picked me up from our house, took me to Bhognipur police station and thrashed me with batons. They wanted me to write that I was behind the kidnapping of my brother. They also accused me of molesting girls. The police released me after two days.”

Anurag Vats, superintendent of police of Kanpur Rural, denied that cops had assaulted the brother. “Ten police teams are working on the case and we hope to rescue the youth soon,” he said.