The crime branch unit four has arrested three persons in the murder case of a six-year-old boy from Wadala.

The crime branch unit four has arrested three persons in the murder case of a six-year-old boy from Wadala. The police had found the boy’s skeleton in December and had started investigation into the case. The accused allegedly sexually assaulted the boy and then murdered him.

Furkan Khan, 6, had been missing since October 15, 2015, when he was last seen playing outside his house in Indira Nagar, Wadala. The police had found the boy’s skeleton in December near the Wadala flyover bridge and had started investigation into the case.

The three accused were arrested on Saturday after one of the accused confessed to the crime after being detained. The accused were identified as Krishnanarayan Yadav, 22, a resident of Azad Mohalla, Wadala (east), Tausif ali Taufik Ali Shaikh, 24, a resident of Sainagar CHS, Antop Hill and Mehmud Ali Sadaf Ali Sayyad, 22, a resident of Azad Mohalla, Sangamnagar, Wadala (east).

The police said, “The accused are labourers, they were drunk on the day they kidnapped the six-year-old boy Furkan Khan from his house. The accused lured him with chocolate and took him to the Wadala bridge. Then they got drunk and sexually assaulted the child several times. Later they killed him by strangulation, and left the place after hiding his body.”

According to the police, the body was hidden in a hollow space in one of the girders supporting the freeway, near the Bhakti Park signal in Wadala. It was discovered by some labourers who were laying cables under the bridge. The body had decomposed over time, with only the skeleton remaining. But the boy’s clothes were still recognisable.

A police official said, “We suspected it could be a case of sexual assault when we found the boy’s trousers was not near the body. We started our investigation. We found a few broken bear bottles near the place we found the body. Then on the basis of the tags on the beer bottles, we approached the beer bottle shop owner and got details about a few people.”

“We kept an eye on those and found some suspicious activities by these three accused. We also found them going to the place where the boy’s body was found,” he added. After questioning one of the accused and he admitted to the crime, all three accused were arrested. They were produced in the holiday court on Sunday and sent to seven days police custody.