On February 14, the financier and his son were allegedly murdered by his business partner and friend Raju, who is missing along with his family ever since. The police had later arrested four persons, who allegedly murdered the Mittals in connivance with Raju and dumped their bodies in a river near Rajpura.

“Yashan had participated in a painting competition a month ago and won the first prize. When his teachers and principal came to hand over his gold medal, he was no more,” said a sobbing Sushma, the four-year-old’s mother. 

Expressing her anguish over the sloppy investigation by the police, Sushma said despite their claims of a thorough probe, even the bodies of the two have not been traced yet.

Yashan’s friends at the Woodland School have, meanwhile, been told that he is not well and would join them soon. “Yashan was a popular child. His classmates are too young to understand what has happened. Everyone prays for him daily. He was such a gifted child that it is hard to believe that he would meet such a horrible end. At the time of his death, he was preparing for an act for the annual function of the school. After the incident, we did not have the heart to replace him with anyone so his partner performed alone,” Yashan’s class teacher said.

Police, meanwhile, say they are at work. “A number of days have passed since the bodies were thrown in a river near Rajpura, so the chances of recovering them are very less now. Wireless messages have been flashed to all areas and we receive calls about unidentified bodies being recovered on a daily basis. Besides, we are keeping a close watch on the bank transactions of Raju to trace him. Inspector Kulbhushan, the CIA in-charge, went personally to meet the manager of the bank where Raju has an account to seek his support in the case,” said Inspector Aman Kumar, SHO, Sector 16.