Bhaktapur, February 18:

The body of a six-year-old boy, Sahil Hussain Khan, who was kidnapped on Thursday, was found at Kattunje-6, Bhaktapur, yesterday, police said today.

SP at the Metropolitan Police Range, Bhaktapur, Bhaktinath Majhi, said police arrested

one Mohammad Rafik yesterday in connetion with the murder. The police claimed that Rafik admitted to kidnapping and killing the boy during interrogation.

Ali Hussain Khan, the father of the boy, had fired Rafik, who used to work as a weaver in his mattress and quilt shop at Suryabinayak, two months ago.

“As Rafik was familiar with Khan’s family members and the boy, the boy went with Rafik on a bicycle. He was playing with his friends near his house when Rafik asked him to come along with him,” the police official said.

“Khan owed me Rs 2,500 and as he was not willing to give me the amount, I kidnapped and murdered the child. I was planning to leave the Valley after the murder when police nabbed me,” the police official quoted Rafik as saying.

The boy was a Kindergarten student at Shining Student Academy, Suryabinayak.

Some parts of his body, including the genitals, had been eaten by a leopard apparently after he was murdered, police said. Locals along with representatives of the Private and Boarding School Organisation of Nepal brought traffic on Araniko Highway to a complete halt for five hours in the morning to protest the incident. The protesters demanded the culprit be punished.

PABSON closed its member schools in Bhaktapur to protest the killing.