NEW DELHI: Technical analysis of more than 2,000 phone numbers led the investigators to a juvenile who allegedly hatched the plan of abduction, and later murder, of his 17-year-old friend, police said today.
Around two months after Ankit Gupta was allegedly abducted from outside his house in northeast Delhi's Babarpur area and later murdered, police had yesterday apprehended two persons, including a juvenile, in connection with the case.
During interrogation, the juvenile, who had studied with Gupta upto Class 7, had allegedly hatched the conspiracy to earn quick money and roped in the other accused, Zeeshan (19), a driver by profession to execute the plan, an official privy to the investigation said.
Investigators analysed more than 2,000 calls made and received by Gupta from around a week before he was abducted and they found 83 numbers which were not in his contact list but communication with them was frequent.
Further investigation into the shortlisted 83 numbers and their data analysis led police to a bunch of suspects, the official said.
Digging deeper into the matter, the police zeroed in on the accused juvenile. They claimed that he initially tried to mislead investigators but later broke down. At one point, the police also went on to assume that Gupta himself could be
involved in his own abduction, the official said.
Ankit was kidnapped on February 11 from outside his house in Babarpura area of northeast Delhi and within 24 hours his family received a phone call from the abductors demanding a ransom of Rs 1 crore for his safe release.
The family informed the matter to the police and negotiated the ransom at Rs 20 lakh, keeping police in loop.
The abductors kept misleading the family and the police for days and later stopped calling.
On March 20, the police concluded that Ankit was killed after some of the details about the boy matched with that of a body found at a village under UP's Gautam Budh Nagar district more than one month ago.
It later emerged that Ankit was murdered by the abductors on February 13, the official said.