Principal of private school in Uttar Pradesh murdered after family couldn't arrange ransom money

SAHARANPUR: Throwing state government claims over improvement in law and order to the wind, unidentified miscreants abducted and murdered the principal of a convent school as his family failed to arrange Rs 2 lakh to pay ransom in Saharanpur district on Friday. Surprisingly, cocking a snook at police bandobast, the abductors committed the crime right under the nose of police and security personnel who were deployed in huge numbers in Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar range due to the ongoing 'Kanwar Yatra' in the holy month of Shravan.

According to Badgaon police SHO Sanjeev Kumar, the Principal and owner of Paramount Convent School, Subhash Kashyap was abducted by four unidentified persons while he was on his way back home to his village Balu Mazra on a motorcycle at around 9 pm on Thursday. When he did not return home till late into the night, his family launched a search.

In the meantime, the family got a call from the mobile of the abducted principal. An unknown person was speaking and he told the family that the principal was abducted and he would be killed if they did not pay a ransom of Rs 2 lakh for securing his release.

The principal's family, in a state of shock and panic, rushed to Badgaon Police Station to lodge an FIR after receiving the ransom call. As per SHO Sanjeev Kumar, the mobile number was put on electronic surveillance and a search operation was immediately launched. The location of the mobile number was traced to Monga jungles on Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur border, said the SHO. He added that the police party deputed to search the abducted principal stumbled upon his bullet-riddled body from the same location on as early as 4 am on Friday. While the police sent the principal's body for post-mortem examination, they recovered three motorbikes-two of abductors and one of principal - from the spot.

However, the cops were wondering why the perpetrators did not wait for ransom and killed the principal within six hours of making the call to his family. "Possibly, the principal had recognised the abductors who could be from the same village or his acquaintances," said a senior police official of the district.

Meanwhile, the police had asked the RTO to furnish details of the owner of two mobikes recovered from the site. The SHO claimed that probe was on into all possible aspects of the killing apart from murder for ransom