Hours after his arrested, the prime accused in the Guwahati kidnap and murder case, Abhishek Baruah, has been remanded in five-police custody on Thursday.
Baruah was produced before a lower court in Kamrup (M) district where he was remanded in police custody for five days.
He is accused of kidnapping and murdering a class 10 student of Maharishi Vidya Mandir School whose body was recovered from a jungle in the outskirts of the city.
Earlier today, Pratidin Time's reporting uncovered that the initial reports of the case being that of kidnap and murder, may not be entirely true. According to eyewitnesses, the accused and the deceased were seen entering the jungles together where the body was later found.
Reports also suggested that the duo might have planned to stage the kidnapping in order to extort ransom money from the parents of the deceased.
The accused, identified as Abhishek Baruah and the deceased, Nitish Kumari Tiwari, were seen venturing into the woods together, witnesses told Pratidin Time, adding that one of them was carrying a sword.
The locals who saw the two of them, said that around 30 minutes later, only Abhishek was seen coming out of the woods. With this, questions emerged that whether this was an actual kidnapping or a pre-planned extortion attempt that somehow went wrong.
It also came to the fore that for the last six months or so, the victim was visiting the rented space of the accused in Guwahati's Birkuchi area.
It may be mentioned that Guwahati Police have made a breakthrough in the harrowing incident of kidnap and murder of 10th standard student in the city’s Bonda area and arrested the prime accused.
According to the reports, one Abhishek Baruah was arrested by the police in connection with the matter. Officials informed that the accused ran a street-side shop in Guwahati’s Hatigaon locality.
The deceased was identified as a class 10 student of a school in the city. He was reportedly kidnapped on Tuesday by the accused who took him to Bonda on the outskirts of Guwahati.
Officials said that the body of the deceased was found deep in the forest area in a half-naked state. They suspect that he was stabbed to death and the body was disposed off there.
After kidnapping the victim, Abhishek demanded a ransom of Rs 7 lakhs for his release informed officials. However, late at night on Wednesday, the body of the victim was recovered from Bonda.
Following the recovery of the body, the police arrested the accused Abhishek Baruah last night itself. Late last night, the Crime Branch of Guwahati Police also reached Hatigaon where the team prepared a crime scene.
