West Bengal man's body exhumed from Jharkhand, 1 held for abduction, murder

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The body of a 35-year-old man from West Bengal, who was allegedly abducted and murdered, was on Friday exhumed from a forest in Jharkhand's Seraikela-Kharsawan district, a police officer said.

A police team from Dalkhola in West Bengal's North Dinajpur district along with the Kandra police exhumed the body from Champanagar forest here in the presence of a magistrate, the police officer said.

The forest area comes under the jurisdiction of Burudih Panchayat of the Seraikela-Kharsawan district, he said.

The victim, identified as Zakir Hussain, a resident of Dalkhol of North Dinajpur district of West Bengal, had come to a village under Kandra police station on September 26 to meet the accused Videsh Mardi, the police officer said.

Mardi had asked Zakir to come to his village so that he could introduce the latter to some labourers.

Zakir used to supply labourers to companies and Mardi had worked as a 'Munshi (assistant) únder the victim in Bengaluru earlier.

Mardi, on that day, allegedly extracted over Rs 95,000 from Zakir, the officer said.

"He transferred the money to an account which belonged to one of Mardi's friends after he was beaten up by the accused," the Officer-in-Charge of Kandra police station, Anjani Kumar, said.

Mardi had called up the victim's wife and demanded Rs 50,000 more. He also threatened to kill Zakir if his demand was not met, Kumar said.

The victim's wife immediately registered a complaint with the police as she apprehended that her husband was abducted for ransom.

After tracking Mardi's mobile phone's location, the West Bengal police along with the Kandra police arrested the accused on Friday. Kumar said.

Mardi tried to mislead the police during interrogation but failed to do so, the police officer said.

The joint police team went to the spot where Zakir's body was buried, exhumed it in the presence of a magistrate and sent it for post-mortem examination, Kumar said.

He said the victim's belongings, including his bag, were also recovered from the same spot.

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