Even family under scanner now in Sujal Wasnik kidnapping case

Nagpur: Desperate to get some breakthrough in the 18-day-old kidnapping of nine-year-old Sujal Wasnik, the cops are now even looking at the possibility of a family member being involved in the crime. After all possible external leads came to a dead end, the cops are probing whether a family member involved in the recent sale of ancestral land by the Wasnik family could have borne a grudge over the distribution of the proceeds.

Sujal was abducted from Lihigaon in Kamptee taluka on September 16. The cops did not take the incident seriously at first, leading to irreparable loss of time and clues, so much so that even senior police officers are now confessing they do not hold out too much hope of finding the boy safe. Kamptee police, which started taking the case seriously only after an uproar in media, has been unable to capitalize on the two arrests it has made so far in the case.

Ramdas Madavi, arrested as prime suspect on September 25 after a foiled bid to collect ransom of Rs4 lakh, had to be rushed to Mayo Hospital after a suicide attempt in the lock-up of Kamptee police. The guards were not alert despite the sensitive nature of the case, allowing Madavi to cut his throat in the bathroom. Cops are now being forced to conduct the questioning through gestures or written questionnaires. The arrest of Sunil Meshram, picked up after Madavi named him as one of the motivators to demand ransom, too proved futile after the court sent him to magisterial custody since there was not much progress in the investigation pertaining to him, apart from communications with the prime suspect.

The cops have also not found any clues in the call record details of the key suspects in the case, including local Tanta-Mukti committee president Borkar, who is also being quizzed by cops. There are, similarly, no inputs from criminal intelligence too.

With most of the external clues failing to lead anywhere, it is learnt that the cops are now concentrating on internal rivalry among family members or other complications involving the kin. "Sharing of money after selling the ancestral property is also being probed," said a source. The cops also feel that Sujal may have been lured away by someone he knew, otherwise he would have resisted, which would have attracted attention.

A senior officer said 10 teams of crime branch and another half dozen teams from six police stations have been involved in various aspects of the probe, including traditional combing operations to pick up criminals for questioning. "Teams are being supervised by DCP (crime) Sambhaji Kadam, and Zonal DCP Krishna Kant Upadhyay while ACP (crime) Somnath Waghchaure, and ACP Kamptee division Rajesh Pardeshi are spearheading the cops on the field, and also in the cyber labs and other special tasks," he said.

A crime branch official said that focus of the unit is completely on Wasnik kidnapping case at present. "Police are hoping to reach a conclusion soon," said the official.