Kushagra Kanodia, a class 10 student, went missing after he left for his coaching Centre in Kanpur, his family members received a letter demanding ₹30 lakh ransom, following which a complaint was registered at the Raipurwa police station.

During the investigation, the boy’s body was found at the house of his former tutor’s boyfriend in Fazal Ganj area, a senior police officer said.

“The teacher Rachita Vats (23), her boyfriend Prabhat Shukla (25), and their aide Shiva Gupta alias Aryan (25) were arrested for the abduction and murder,” Kanpur joint commissioner of police (law and order) Anand Prakash Tiwari said, adding that prima facie it appeared the plot to kidnap and murder the 16-year-old was hatched by Shukla.

The police have recovered the jute rope allegedly used by the accused to strangulate the boy, the JCP said. “The accused will be produced before the court and the police will seek their custody remand for interrogation.”

The officer further said that the police pieced together the sequence of crime — Kushagra being abducted, his confinement in a room where he was murdered, his scooter being abandoned at some random location and a ransom letter being dropped at his Acharya Nagar residence — using CCTV footages obtained from various locations.

Further investigations revealed that Prabhat intercepted the boy at a busy crossing and asked him to drop him off at his house, the JCP said.

“The footage around Shukla’s house showed that the Kushagra followed the Prabhat inside the house around 4.45pm. Soon after, Shukla came out and locked the main door of his house and left with his aide Shiva,” the officer said. “We believe the boy was murdered soon after he went inside the house. It may have happened between 4.45pm and 5.15pm.”

Later, Prabhat left the boy’s scooter near a club on GT Road. His friend Shiva(Aaryan) allegedly went on his two-wheeler to the boy’s house to drop the ransom note, police said. “Prabhat and others tampered with the registration number [of the motorcycle] in a way that it was not captured by a CCTV camera,” DCP (Central) Pramod Kumar said.

The boy, whose father Manish Kanodia runs a textile business in Surat in Gujarat, police said.

A case under sections 302 (murder), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against the three accused.

Kushagra Kanodia, an innocent boy was murdered for some rupees and before his parent got informed they already murdered him! This is rare and rarest case and every year more than 100000 children got kidnapped and murdered and there is not any strong Punishment to stop this in our society, we urge to each and every Person out there to sign this petition to hang the murderers.