Kidnapped Muzaffarpur trader found dead

PATNA: Three days after a brutally stabbed teenager’s body was recovered from Patna, the bullet-ridden body of a businessman was recovered from Pokhraira village under Saraiyya police station area in Muzaffarpur district, 65km from Patna, on Tuesday.

The body of 40-year-old Jai Prakash Narayan, who was allegedly kidnapped on Monday, had bullet marks on his chest and head.

Barely ten days ago, former Muzaffarpur mayor Samir Kumar and his driver were gunned down using AK-47 assault rifle in Muzaffarpur town on September 23.

Police said Narayan, who ran a poultry and hardware businesses, had left home on Sunday for a land deal. Family members lost contact with him after 1.30pm on Monday. He was a resident of Halilpur village under the Karja police station area in Muzaffarpur.

Saraiyya police station SHO Shambhu Sharan Gupta said Narayan had last called his younger brother and asked him to send their employee Sanjay Kumar with his chequebook near Bhamashah Dwar under the Sadar police station area. An unidentified biker had collected the chequebook from Sanjay.

Gupta said the biker, whose bike did not have any registration number, returned after an hour and gave back the chequebook to Sanjay. The chequebook had four cheques signed by Narayan, including two for Rs 50 lakh each and the other two for Rs 25 lakh each. When Sanjay asked the youth about Narayan, he was tersely told to get the cheques encashed without wasting time.

The bank, however, returned the cheques, citing insufficient balance in Narayan’s account. “It was after this episode that the family members suspected a foul play and lodged a case of kidnapping of Narayan on Monday,” the SHO said.

DIG (Tirhut range) Anil Kumar Singh and Muzaffapur SSP Manoj Kumar could not be contacted for further details as they did not take TOI’s calls on Tuesday evening.

Three days back in Patna, a government homeopath’s son Satyam Kumar was brutally murdered by his friends after which they had also made a ransom call to the family, demanding Rs 50 lakh for his release. The Class X student’s body with at least 40 stab wounds was recovered from a walled ground full of wild grass behind the RPS Engineering College under the Rupaspur police station area on September 29.