New Delhi: Six-year-old Ahaan Pratap was stabbed nine times and his 13-year-old brother Ayush at least 14 times before the prime accused Sajid allegedly slit their throats, ThePrint has learnt.
According to sources in the Budaun police, the boys’ post-mortem report revealed that they were stabbed in the neck, stomach, hands and legs.
“They were first attacked in the neck and then stabbed multiple times on their chest, back, hands and legs,” said one source.
But many questions remain about the grisly double murder which took place in Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun on the evening of 19 March.
Police suspect that Sajid, the prime accused, slit the throats of the boys with a knife. He then tried to catch hold of their eight-year-old brother Piyush who managed to run downstairs and alert the family.
The FIR states that Sajid showed up at the home of the boys’ father Vinod Kumar at around 6:35 pm Tuesday asking for Rs 5,000 on the pretext of his ‘pregnant’ wife’s delivery since the families knew each other from earlier. Sajid’s brother Javed was waiting outside the house at the time. Sangita Devi, the mother, said she was in the kitchen making tea for Sajid when he took Ahaan and Ayush to the terrace where he attacked them with a knife.
Police sources said the investigation so far suggests that Sajid first attacked Ayush who had gone to the terrace to give him water. He then turned to Ahaan and later to Piyush before fleeing the crime scene.
Sajid was killed in a police encounter in Budaun’s Sheikhupura area some three hours after the murders. Police said Sajid, who ran a salon, used a country-made pistol to fire at the police team that tried to nab him.
Javed, a co-accused in the case, surrendered before the police Thursday night in Bareilly and is currently being questioned. In a video that has since been doing the rounds on social media, Javed can be heard claiming his innocence and saying that he fled Budaun for Delhi and then surrendered in Bareilly after receiving phone calls about what Sajid had done.
Police sources said Javed made multiple claims during interrogation which are being verified, adding that the motive for the murders remains unclear.
The police had, initially, said the murders stemmed from personal rivalry between Sajid and Vinod Kumar’s family. But Vinod Kumar and his wife have denied that there was any friction between them and the accused.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)