By IANS
Patna : After failing to determine whether kidnapped Bihar boy Ankit Gope is dead or alive, police here have decided to put the man arrested for the abduction on a lie detector test.
A senior police official has confirmed that Balram Paswan, who used to work as a domestic help Ankit's house, will undergo the test. Ankit, a kindergarten student, was abducted outside St Paul's School in Gaighat locality here April 12.
"We will put Paswan through a lie detector test to know whether the abducted boy is alive or dead," the official said.
Paswan, in the last 12 days since his arrest, has changed his statements time and again. Soon after his arrest he said he had killed Ankit the day he abducted him.
But a day later he changed his statement, claiming the boy was still alive and had not been killed. Paswan said he did not kill Ankit and the boy was with his accomplice Sanjay Rajak.
Paswan apparently told the police that he had made his earlier statement under pressure from Rajak to secure a ransom of Rs.1.5 million. The demand for ransom was confirmed by the boy's father Manoj Gope.
Paswan again changed his statement. He told police that he had killed Ankit and buried him. A police team visited the banks of a river in Chapra district to trace the body but it proved to be a futile exercise.
Patna police had taken him into seven days' custody and interrogated him but failed to recover the boy or his body.
Sources in police said their teams were sent to different places to rescue Ankit. "Police are trying to trace the boy following Paswan's disclosure that he was with Rajak," a police official said.
A team of the Patna and Chapra police Saturday attached the moveable property of Rajak in compliance with a court order.
Ankit's mother Poonam Devi still hopes that her son will return safely. Manoj Gope, a small-time businessman, who also runs a beauty parlour, also thinks his son is alive.
More than 900 people have been abducted across the state in the first three months of 2007. M.P. Gupta, a senior lawyer of the Patna High Court, quoted a court report saying that 903 cases of kidnappings took place in Bihar between Jan 1 and March 31.
In January there were 333 abductions, in February 361 and March, 209. According to officials, over 2,000 kidnappings occurred in 2006 alone.
Lawyers, doctors, contractors, businessmen and school students have been the prime targets of abductors for ransom.
Earlier this year, the Patna High Court had directed the state government to trace 144 children and 581 women who had been missing since 2001.