Representative image of crime.
Credit: iStock Photo
Lucknow: A seven-year-old child was brutally hacked to death after being kidnapped in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut district on Sunday, triggering tension in the area.
According to the police sources here, the child, whose father is a constable in UP police and is currently deployed in Saharanpur district, went missing while playing outside his home in the morning.
A letter demanding a ransom of Rs 50 lakh was later delivered to the child's family by someone.
The locals informed the police and launched a search operation and a little later the child's body was recovered from a sugarcane field a few hundred metres away from his Dhanpur village.
Police sources said that the child's body bore severe injury marks. A piece of sugarcane was found stuffed in his mouth. Police detained three persons, identified as Titu, his wife Suman and daughter Teena. All the accused persons live in the neighbourhood, the police said.
Sources said that it was Titu, who had delivered the letter to the child's family claiming that he was given the letter by some child.
Tension prevailed in the area after the incident and a large mob of locals blocked the road in protest against the killing and the police had a tough time in controlling the mob and taking the body for autopsy.
Security personnel in strength had been deployed in the village to maintain law and order. Police said that a case has been lodged, and investigations are on.