Shimla: A local court in Himachal Pradesh’s Shimla awarded the death penalty to three men on Wednesday four years after they kidnapped and murdered a four-year-old boy for ransom.
The district and sessions court had held Chander Sharma, Tajender Singh and Vikrant Bakshi guilty under Sections 302, 347 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code on August 6. Sharma, a son of grocery store owner, is a student of law at Himachal Pradesh University, Singh owns a cosmetics shop and Bakshi is an engineering student.
Yug Gupta, the son of businessman Vinod Gupta, was kidnapped and murdered in the Kelston area of Shimla four years ago. Yug’s skeletal remains were found inside a water tank in the Kelston locality on August 22, 2016, leading to widespread protests across the town. The child was tortured, starved and forced to consume liquor before he was thrown into the tank, police said.
According to the investigation, Sharma, who knew Yug’s father, hatched the conspiracy to kidnap the child for ransom. The accused demanded Rs 3.6 crore from his father. They had made ransom calls to the child’s family even after killing him. A video grab on Bakshi’s mobile phone, in which Yug was seen pleading for his life, led to a breakthrough in the case. The three men were arrested on August 22, 2016.
