Ghaziabad, Aug 16 (PTI) Two men have been arrested for the brutal murder of a man whose beheaded body was found on the roadside here on June 22, police said on Friday.

The Teela Mod Police launched an investigation and identified the victim Raj Kumar alias Raju, 29, through CCTV footage and manual intelligence, they said.

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The accused, Vikas alias Mota and Dhananjay, both natives of Muzaffarpur and Motihari districts in Bihar, were apprehended on Thursday evening from the Teela Mod-Farukh Nagar road here, according to DCP (Trans Hindan) Nimish Patil.

"During interrogation, Mota revealed that their third accomplice Vikas, the son of Parmatma, had demanded a human skull for occult practices to earn money," he said.

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"The trio targeted Raj Kumar, who was known to be addicted to drugs, near the Kamla Market in Delhi. They took him to their rented room, served him liquor, and then strangled him with a scarf on the night of July 21-22.

"They then hanged his body from a ceiling fan to stage a suicide, Mota told police," he added.

After the murder, Mota and Dhananjay allegedly transported the body in an auto-rickshaw to Bhopura Loni Road, where they decapitated it, the officer said.

According to the police, the severed head was placed in a plastic bucket and handed over to their accomplice Vikas, who had requested it for the occult ritual.

The victim's head has not yet been recovered, and the police are continuing to search for it based on the information provided by the arrested men, Patil said.

Vikas remains at large, while both Mota and Dhananjay have been sent to jail, Patil added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)