The man, who had taken 23 children captive in a Uttar Pradesh village, had apparently planned it over a month and studied similar cases of hostage crisis, police said on February 1.
Subhash Batham, a murder accused, had taken the children hostage after inviting them for a birthday party at his house in Farrukhabad’s Kasaria village on Thursday afternoon. The children were freed after the police barged into the house late on Thursday night and shot Batham dead.
“It seems Batham had planned it for a month,” Kanpur Range IGP Mohit Agarwal said. He added that Batham’s mobile phone has been seized.
Batham’s wife was also involved and had demanded ₹1 crore to free each child, he said
The police has analysed Batham’s phone and it has been found that “he was planning it for a long time, searching and downloading bomb-making techniques”, Mr. Agarwal said.
“He had studied in detail a similar case in 2004 in Russia where children were held hostage, besides some other similar cases,” the IG said.
