How Phantom and Honey traced killer of kidnapped boy in 25 minutes!

Phantom and Honey are proving to be most reliable investigators for Azamgarh police.

Roped in to solve an abduction and murder case of a teenaged boy, the duo, known for hunting in a pair, took less than 25 minutes in tracing the alleged killer, who was hiding in a congested narrow bylane of an Azamgarh village.

After tracing the killer, the duo also managed to locate the axe used for the murder, and the mobile phone used for making the ransom call — all within no time. The “under 30-minute feat” is commendable considering the fact that the pair of four-year-old trained police sniffer dogs were deputed on the task after nearly two dozen policemen failed to locate the criminal even after struggling for over 16 hours.

“They are our pride. Both belong to the Labrador breed and have been trained at Dog School of Border Security Force Training Centre, Gwalior. Rarely, a criminal has been caught in such quick time,” said senior superintendent of police (SSP) of Azamgarh, Triveni Singh.

Narrating the sequence of incident, Singh said Sachin Yadav, 14, whose father Santosh Yadav runs a grocery store in Fattepur village of Azamgarh’s Pavai area, was kidnapped on Tuesday night.

He said the boy called his mother from an unknown number and informed about his kidnapping.

Before switching off their phone, the kidnapper had sought for ₹ 10 lakh for the safe release of the teenager.

“While cops were investigating the matter, the body was found from a dry well around 200 meters from his house on Wednesday evening. This triggered tension in the village and we were under extreme pressure to solve the case at the earliest,” said the SSP.

It was then the idea of roping in two tracker dogs came.

“Phantom and Honey got into action soon after sniffing the muffler found tied around the boy’s neck and started walking down along the narrow lanes of the village and straightway reached the house of the killer identified as Ravi Kumar. The spot was nearly 500 meters from where the body was found,” said the SSP, while insisting that the route was not straight but still dogs acted smart and sniffed down the killer.

Ravi, meanwhile, has confessed to his crime.

A family friend of Sachin’s father, he was aware about the amount of money they had got after selling a property in Mumbai.

The accused lured the boy to come at a deserted place and made him make a call to his mother through a mobile that he had stolen a few days back.

The kidnapped boy was killed after he threatened Ravi to expose him.

The SSP said the accused first hit the boy with axe and then strangulated him when he fell unconscious.

The body was later disposed of in a dry well.