Hungry for fame, duo kill minor for ransom, held

In a bid to participate in a dance reality show — Dance India Dance — and earn fame, two juveniles including a girl, kidnapped a 13-year-old boy, demanded a ransom of Rs 60,000, killed him and threw the dead body from a hill in Uttarakhand. Both the accused persons have been apprehended by the Delhi Police.

According to police, after the accused duo was apprehended they revealed that they are dancers and choreographers and belong to poor families. They used to teach in many dance academies in Faridabad, Haryana and Badarpur. Both of them aspired to earn fame by participating in the reality show Dance India Dance for which they were in need of Rs 60,000. Hence, they hatched a plan to kidnap <g data-gr-id="21">Swapensh</g> Gupta who used to visit a dance academy at Badarpur, so that they could demand ransom from his parents.

The accused duo took him to Kashipur, Uttarakhand, on the pretext of participating in a Dance show at Rudrapur, Uttarakhand. Before making a ransom call, they realised that if they set free the kidnapped boy after taking the ransom money from his parents, the boy would disclose their identity. Hence, they planned to eliminate the boy first and make a ransom call later. On September 16, they took him to the top of a hill at Ranikhet Road in <g data-gr-id="22">Uattrakhand</g> and strangulated him with his school belt and threw the body from the hill and returned to Delhi.

The mobile phones used for making the ransom calls and the motorcycle that was used for collecting the ransom amount have been recovered.