Indian police identified an alleged murderer, who kidnapped and murdered his eight-year-old distant cousin, through a spelling test.
According to details, the 22-year-old accused identified as Ram Pratap Singh, allegedly kidnapped the eight-year-old boy, from his grandmother’s house. He then used a stolen phone to send a ransom note to the family demanding Rs 200,000 for the release of the child.
In the message, he wrote: “Do lakh rupay Seeta-Pur lekar pahuchiye. Pulish ko nahi batana nahi to haatya kar denge (Reach Sitapur with Rs 2 lakh. Don’t inform the police or your son will be killed).”
The family approached police after more than a week and registered a missing complaint after which an investigation was initiated.
“We swiftly formed teams to trace the kidnapped boy and called back on the same number but it was switched off. The cyber-surveillance cell was roped in and we detained the subscriber, who seemed illiterate and unable to write an SMS,” the local police said.
The investigators detained 10 suspects, including the accused, from the area on the basis of clues gathered through the area’s CCTV footage and tip-offs.
All of them were asked by the cops to write a sentence: “Main police main bharti hona chahta hoon. Main Hardoi se Sitapur daud kar ja sakta hoon (I want a police job. I can run from Hardoi to Sitapur).”
Singh, who made spelling mistakes in his ransom note once again repeated them by writing ‘pulish’ for police and ‘Seeta-pur’ for Sitapur, resulting in his arrest.
