Abducted boy's body found in Punjab

A day after 16-year-old Abhi Verma was abducted, police on Tuesday found his body near Hoshiarpur district in Punjab and arrested two of his alleged kidnappers.

Abhi Verma, a class IX student and the son of a prominent jeweller, was kidnapped near Shimla Pahari Chowk on Monday while he was going to school. The abductors had called his father Ravi Verma and demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh.

The police found Abhi's body in a field in Alawalpur village at around 0930 IST.

They speculate that the boy could have died of a drug overdose because the kidnappers injected him with a lot of sedatives.

The post-mortem report is awaited.

Inspector General Police, (Jalandhar Zone), S K Sharma, said the two abductors, Vikram Singh alias Vicky and Jasvir Singh, were arrested at around 0130 IST on Monday when they were burning Abhi's schoolbooks and uniform.

During interrogation, Vicky and Jasvir revealed that they were in the property dealing business and Vicky knew Abhi and his family.

They had planned the abduction to pay off a Rs 2.5 lakh loan, added the officials.

The police said that Vicky and Jasvir had no previous criminal record.

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Jeweller's son kidnapped in Punjab