A man was arrested in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur on Tuesday for allegedly pushing his five-year-old son in a river, leading to his death, in an attempt to wrongly frame his neighbour in the case, police said.
Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Manoj Awasthi said the accused Sanjeev Kumar, a resident of Tiulak village under Sidhauli police station limits, on Monday approached the local police, claiming that his son had been kidnapped.
Kumar accused four persons — Baburam, Vivek, Vishal and Rinku — all residents of his village, of kidnapping his son Gaurav (5) when he was returning after buying medicine from the market, Awasthi said.
"When alerted about this, Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Meena formed teams to rescue the kidnapped boy. During the process, the boy's father was also questioned and he told police that he had pushed his son from the bridge of Khannaut river," Mr Awasthi said.
On Monday, Gaurav had got into a fight with 6-year-old Ayush who lives in the same neighbourhood, after which Kumar's wife went to Ayush's house with a complaint but a fight broke out again between the families, the officer said.
Humiliated by the insult, Kumar's wife asked him to take a revenge, so the accused hatched a plan to frame his neighbour but lost his son, he added.
The police said they recovered Gaurav's body from the Khannaut river on Tuesday at the place mentioned by the boy's father, who has been arrested and sent to jail.
