8-year-old boy killed by his mother's lover in UP's Ghaziabad, accused arrested

Police said that the accused had an affair with the boy's mother, but the child objected to it, so he decided to kill the child.

In Short

• Accused Mahesh Gupta arrested after brief encounter with police
• Gupta hospitalised after being hit by a bullet in the leg
• Accused dumps boy's body in forest after strangulating him to death

One person has been arrested for allegedly murdering an 8-year-old boy by strangulating him in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, police said on Thursday.

Accused Mahesh Gupta was arrested and shot in the leg after a brief encounter with the police, who had launched a manhunt for him after the boy's mother lodged a missing complaint about her son on October 23. The accused was hospitalised after the arrest.

As per the complaint lodged by the woman, her son Akash had gone out of the house on his bicycle on October 22 and did not return.

After the complaint, the police started a search for the boy, whose body was recovered from a deserted place in Ghaziabad City Forest area, Ghaziabad DCP Rajesh Gupta said.

There were injury marks on the boy's neck, suggesting that the child was killed after being strangulated with a rope. The police sent the body for postmortem.

The arrest came after the police scanned CCTV footage of the area and saw the child with Mahesh Gupta, a shopkeeper who runs a cold drink shop in the locality.

When the police rounded Gupta up after a long manhunt, he opened fire at them and an encounter ensued.

"During interrogation, the accused told us that he was having an affair with the boy's mother, but the child objected to it. Gupta considered Akash an obstacle in their relationship, and decided to eliminate him", DCP Kumar said.

Gupta said that whenever he tried to speak to Akash's mother over the phone, he would not let him do so.

On the day of the incident, when Akash left the house on a bicycle, Mahesh Gupta stopped him on the pretext of offering him a cold drink and took him to the forest area. Thereafter, he strangulated the boy to death with the help of a rope.

Meanwhile, the police have registered a murder case under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) and have launched further investigation into the matter.