Former junior tennis player murdered

Former junior national tennis player S Kartik Raj, who was kidnapped from a lodge in Pune for a ransom of Rs 700,000, was done to death by his abductors on August 8, police disclosed on Monday.

Briefing reporters, Assistant Commissioner of Police M C Mulani said Kartik Raj (21) was murdered by four persons, one of whom was his former room mate, Santosh Bariar (25), hailing from Samastipur in Bihar.

The accused, who were arrested in Bombay on Sunday, confessed during interrogation that they had phoned Kartik's father and demanded a ransom of Rs 700,000 on August 7 after abducting Kartik from a lodge on Bhandarkar road.

However, the very next day they killed Kartik, cut his body into pieces, put it in a bag and dumped it into a canal in Wadgaon Dhayari in the district, Mulani added.

Police have not yet been able to locate the bag containing the body as the water level in the canal has risen, making the search difficult, he said.

Kartik's father S Ramraj is as an assistant manager at National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) and was transferred to Hyderabad from Pune recently.