A 32-year-old man who was allegedly part of the group that Satyendra Chowdhury had hired to kill two boys from Baguiati was arrested in Delhi on Saturday.
A senior state CID officer said that Kanhai Kumar had fled the city after Class X students Atanu Dey, 16, and Abhishek Naskar, 15, were found dead on August 22.
According to the officer they learnt about Kumar’s alleged involvement in the crime from Chowdhury, the main accused.
Chowdhury was arrested a week ago from Howrah station by a team from the Bidhannagar Commissionerate, 18 days after the teenagers were abducted and strangled inside a car before their bodies were dumped in a canal along the Basanti Highway at two different spots.
According to the officer, Kumar had been promised more than Rs 1 lakh to help Chowdhury carry out the abduction and the double murders.
Kumar is a driver by profession, the police said.
Chowdhury had allegedly hired four men and a driver to kidnap Atanu Dey and his cousin Abhishek Naskar on August 22.
Chowdhury, a next-door neighbour of Atanu, had apparently promised to buy a 200cc motorcycle for him after taking Rs 50,000 from him.
Chowdhury who ran a tyre repair shop also dealt in second-hand two-wheelers on the side.
“Kumar was picked up from Delhi by our team. We had been tracking his movements and had put him under surveillance,” said the officer.
Kumar was produced before a Delhi court on Saturday. The court has granted transit remand for him for four days, another CID officer said.
The murder of the boys was planned, according to the police, who said ropes were already kept inside the car when the boys boarded.
The bodies of cousins Atanu Dey and Abhishek Naskar, reported missing on August 22, were found in a morgue in the Basirhat police district, around 60km from Baguiati.
The families of the boys had alleged that the Bidhannagar police did not take the case seriously despite being told that they were getting ransom calls from the suspected kidnappers.
The state CID is now probing the case