Boys held for murder stole chloroform from their college lab

MUMBAI: A couple of days after two minor boys from Nagpada were arrested for allegedly kidnapping and killing a three-year-old girl from their building, the police said that the boys had stolen chloroform from the science lab of their college in south Mumbai about a fortnight prior to the murder.
The child, Tarannnum Fatema alias Junera, whose decomposed body was found on December 24-nineteen days after she had gone missing.Her body was buried at at the Naryalwadi Muslim cemetery at Reay Road on Sunday night.
The 16-year-old boys, Aslam Khan and Javed Khan (names changed), who are class XII science students were arrested late on Saturday. While they had initially demanded Rs1 crore ransom from the girl's father, they later brought down the amount to Rs28 lakh.
The police described Aslam as being "very ambitious" as he wanted to make lots of money overnight. "He had planned the kidnapping at least a month prior to the crime," said a police officer.
A resident of the locality where the boys live said that Aslam had earlier been ousted from his school for stealing students' belongings. "He had also taken loans of up to Rs1 lakh from dozens of collegemates," said the resident who asked not to be named. The police said they will corroborate this information.
The police claimed that the two boys were present at Kalwa where the girl's father was to drop a bag of cash to be paid as ransom. "Aslam's phone location that day shows as Kalwa. The Sim card had been obtained fraudulently in the name of one Mohammed Alam. We will summon him to see if he had given his documents to procure the card," said the officer.
Inspector Hemant Baudhnakar said they are still making enquiries to join the dots.