Ransom call for dead boy leads to arrest of three

Based on a phone call made by a maulvi, police arrested three extortionists who tried to hoodwink the father of a 12-year-old boy who was murdered in September 2015 in North-east Delhi’s Jafrabad area.

The prime accused, a maulvi based in Saharanpur, hatched a plot with two accomplices to call the father and demand Rs 50,000 ransom for his son, unaware that the boy was long dead. 

The three accused have been identified as Mohd Burahanuddin, the maulvi who was the mastermind, Sameer and Billa. Mehraj Hassan’s son, Adi was kidnapped and murdered on September 13 last year by three juveniles, who are now behind bars. On January 20, Hassan got a call that his son was alive, and would be released after paying a ransom. Hassan was shocked and approached the local police, who traced the call to Saharanpur and eventually arrested all the three suspects. 

At the time when his son had been kidnapped, Hassan had met Burahanuddin who influenced him to wear a tabeez (talisman) so that his son would return. Burahanuddin slowly won Hassan’s trust and simultaneously planned with Billa and Sameer to earn quick money by making ransom calls about the boy, police said.

“Mehraj got a call on January 20 from an unknown number that his son is alive. When he did not respond, he again got a call the next day. He approached us and we started tracking the phone number and found that the calls were coming from Saharanpur. The maulvi was behind all this. Since it was difficult to arrest a maulvi, out of the six cops who were sent to Saharanpur, two of them were disguised as common men who went to the maulvi to seek help about an ill family member. We then tracked the maulvi to one of the two places of worship and caught hold of him,” said a police officer privy to the investigation.

Burahanuddin then disclosed the whereabouts of the other two accused. They were all arrested on Tuesday and brought to Delhi, said the officer.  “We had sent a team of six policemen, along with security arrangements, to ensure that these men are arrested soon,” added the officer. Police recovered a SIM card and a mobile phone which was used to make the ransom call.