Botched Rs 50L ransom plan: Video game partner arrested with 2 aides for murder of Class 8 Nagpur boy

NAGPUR: Forty-eight hours after the body of a Class 8 student, Atharva Nanore, was found stuffed in a sugarcane sack, 20km off his home, the teen's 19-year-old video-game partner was arrested along with two accomplices. The kidnapping and murder of the 14-year-old boy followed a botched Rs 50 lakh ransom plot, triggered by his father's big talk about his wealth, police said on Monday.

Jai Yadav, who would play video games with Atharva and often visited the Nanore family home in Gawalipura in Gittikhadan, emerged as the mastermind. He was planning the crime for several weeks after hearing Atharva's father, Dilip — a wholesale vegetable seller, moneylender and property dealer — boast about properties worth crores, including ongoing constructions. Jai, who also took vegetables on credit from Dilip, saw an opportunity to extort ₹50 lakh.

Yadav first attempted the kidnapping during the crowded Ram Navami procession but failed. He and his aides succeeded on Hanuman Jayanti (April 2).

Around 9.53 pm, CCTV footage captured the moment in which Atharva was spotted walking with Jai in a side lane near the procession route on the pretext of urinating.

Jai casually convinced the boy to get into a waiting car. Kunal Shahu, 22, an electrician, was waiting inside along with Ayush Shahu, 19, a junkyard worker and scrap dealer who drove the vehicle and owned it too.

The trio drove Atharva towards Bokhara near Koradi, where Jai bought rodenticide spray hoping to render the boy unconscious, but the attempt failed. Atharva became irritated and resisted fiercely.

Between 11:30pm and 11:45pm, his captors panicked and strangled him inside the car with a black cloth, which they later tore to tie his legs and hands.

Jai also purchased a new SIM and handset for ransom calls that never materialised. They drove the vehicle near Ayush's residence at Gorewada, left the body in the rear seat overnight and returned to their areas. Jai sneaked back into his house, alarmed by intense searches.

On April 3, Jai and Kunal purchased two grain and vegetable sacks, borrowed a scooty and went to the car.

Jai and Kunal tied and packed the body into the sacks inside the car and drove out with a plan to dump the body in the outskirts of the city.

The duo attempted to dump the body at multiple locations, but could not find a safe spot. Finally, they stuffed the body between two pillars on the Bharatwada railway overbridge. A villager spotted the decomposed body on April 4. Jai and Kunal washed the vehicle too near Bharatwada after dumping the body.

Meanwhile, the accused brazenly remained in Gittikhadan area, monitored police movements and even participated in local protests demanding the boy's safe return.

Gittikhadan police initially rounded up Jai but released him after failing to crack him. The breakthrough came when the crime branch, under Additional CP Vasant Pardeshi, DCP Rahul Maknikar and ACP Abhijit Patil, formed 12 specialised teams. These teams analysed CCTV footage, call detail records, locations, and questioned associates, family members, students and neighbours. The teams also conducted searches along Bharatwada Ring Road for clues.

API Nitin Chulpar of the crime branch rounded up Jai again. During intense overnight interrogation by DCP Maknikar and his team, Jai named Kunal and Ayush.

The three were arrested and quizzed separately, eventually spilling the beans. Three mobile phones were seized along with the vehicle. After the body was identified with signs of strangulation, the trio was named in an FIR for murder, kidnapping for ransom. None of the accused had prior criminal records.