Five arrested teenage boys have confessed to the abduction and subsequent killing of Nirab Mandal, son of Shekhar Mandal of Guturia village in Dumuria upazila of Khulna and a student of Gutudia Akkur Chandra Goldar Bandhav (ACGB) Secondary School.
The five gave their confessional statement in court on Friday, after which they were sent to jail.
As they are teenagers, the accused are scheduled to be sent to a juvenile detention centre on Saturday.
They hatched a plan to abduct the schoolboy a month and a half ago after watching the Indian television series “Crime Patrol”.
After that they started looking for opportunities.
At first two friends took the target of kidnapping Nirab before and after Saraswati Puja but they both failed.
According to the police, the accused called Nirab Mandal to the school last Thursday, telling a lie. One friend was staying at that place with a nylon rope, lock and key. They took Nirab to the abandoned building next to the school. Later, they strangled Nirab to death and hung the body from a beam.
Later, they demanded a ransom of Tk30 lakh from Nirab's father.
An altercation ensued between the victim's father and the accused. At one stage the accused turned off the incoming calls of the phone used. They took down the body and hid it in the corner of the room wrapped in old clothes. Later, they left the place.
They had planned that they would destroy all the evidence during a three-day holiday of the school so that no one could sense that such an incident had happened at the school, but they failed.
At around 11pm on the day of the incident, they again called the phone used by Nirab's father and demanded the ransom.
Tracking the phone call, the police arrested the accused.
They recovered Nirab's body on Friday.
The five were not very attentive to their study, according to locals.
Shankar Prasad Mondal, head teacher of Gutudia ACGB Secondary School, said that the death of Nirab Mondal cannot be accepted in any way. He used to come to school regularly. The behaviour and academic performance of the accused teenagers were not satisfactory.