Jharkhand Man Arrested For Driving Around With Body In Car Boot: Cops

A junior engineer was arrested in Jamshedpur after he was caught moving around in a car in the early hours of Friday with a body stuffed in a cricket kit bag and kept in the boot, police said.

Police has taken away the body, East Singhbhum senior superintendent of police M Tamil Vanan said.

The SSP said the engineer confessed during interrogation that the body was that of a moneylender, who was a resident of Kasidih locality in Jamshedpur and had visited his residence, when none of his family members were present, with a woman on Thursday afternoon.

But soon two persons, including the woman's husband, arrived and an altercation took place with the moneylender. During the quarrel one of the two men picked up a cricket bat and hit the moneylender injuring him fatally, he confessed.

The SSP said the engineer claimed that he had agreed to dispose the moneylender's body as the two men threatened him. He bought the sports kit bag from Sakchi market, stuffed the body into it to avoid detection and kept it in the vehicle's booty to dispose it.

Meanwhile, the two men demanded Rs 50 lakh from the engineer's family members on WhatsApp for his safe release. However, they agreed to release the engineer after his family members consented to pay Rs 25 lakh, police officer said.

The family approached the police when they failed to contact the engineer on his two mobile phones.

The SSP said a special investigation team was formed immediately and the police technical cell was alerted to catch the two men who were sending messages to the engineer's frequently over mobile phone demanding the ransom from different locations of the steel city.

Suspecting that the two men were moving around in a car with the junior engineer, the police launched a check and intercepted the vehicle after midnight, he said.

The driver tried to speed away but the police personnel foiled the move and found the body in the boot.

Raids are on to catch the two men, Mr Vanan added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)