Five people killed their friend, son of an industrialist, for ransom in Uttar Pradesh's Agra town and later cremated him wearing PPE kits in a bid to avoid being caught.
According to the police sources here, the victim, identified as Sachin Chauhan, was lured by his friends on the pretext of a liquor party and was strangled to death last week.
The alleged killers, all friends of Sachin, were arrested by the police on Monday.
Police said that the perpetrators, some of whom were head over ears in debt, hatched a conspiracy to kill Sachin and then demand a ransom of Rs. two crore from his family.
As per the plan, they took Sachin to a closed water purifying plant on the outskirts of Agra town on the pretext of a liquor party. They later strangled him to death.
They then had Sachin's body wrapped in a plastic bag and put on PPE kits themselves before taking the body to the cremation ghat. They told the staff at the crematorium that the body was that of a man who had died from Covid-19.
They cremated Sachin's body at the cremation ghat and also collected the ashes the next day and immersed them in the Yamuna river.
The case was handed over to the special task force (STF), which arrested all the five accused persons on Monday.