MP shocker: Hungry six-year-old boy seeking money for food killed by cop

BHOPAL: A six-year-old hungry boy seeking money for food was strangled to death by a police head constable in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh.

The accused cop Ravi Sharma has been arrested and the Datia district police superintendent has written to the state police headquarters in Bhopal to dismiss him from service.

The state police top brass is likely to order the dismissal of the cop from service within a day or two, state Police Headquarters sources told The New Indian Express on Wednesday.

According to Datia district police superintendent Aman Singh Rathore, a six-year-old boy Mayank Sen went missing from Datia Kotwali area on May 4.

Mayank, the son of the owner of a small haircutting saloon, went missing on the day when the town was dotted with VIP visits for the Maa Pitambara Rathyatra.

"A case of abduction u/s 363 IPC was lodged at Datia Kotwali on the complaint of the missing boy's family on May 5. The same day a boy's body was found in Jhansi Road area in adjoining Gwalior district. When the local police matched the body with Mayank's picture, it was established that the body was of the same minor," Rathore said.

The subsequent probe revealed that the boy's body was dumped on Gwalior's Jhansi Road area from a black Verna car owned by Ravi Sharma, a head constable posted at the Police Training School (PTS-Tighra) in Gwalior district.

The grilling of the cop (who was depressed and suffering from mood swings) revealed that the boy had repeatedly asked Sharma for money to buy food on May 4, while Sharma was deployed on security duty in Datia, the SP of Datia said.

"The boy repeatedly asked Sharma for some money to buy food, but the cop refused to give money and drove the boy away. But the boy kept coming back and asking for money, and the policeman, in a fit of rage, strangled the minor to death," the SP of Datia said.

Sharma subsequently hid the boy's body in his Verna car, took it to his hometown Gwalior and dumped the body near Vivekanand Crossing in Jhansi Road area.

"Sharma has been arrested and booked for murder. We've written to the ADG-Training in Indore for his dismissal from service," SP Rathore said.