Berhampur: A court in Odisha's Ganjam district on Friday sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the abduction and murder of a seven-year-old boy in 2019.

The First Additional District and Sessions Court convicted Debasish Panda after finding sufficient evidence against him in the murder of Ansuman, son of Nirupama Acharya.

According to the prosecution, Panda had developed a one-sided romantic interest in Nirupama Acharya and had been attempting to establish a relationship with her. After his advances were rejected, he targeted her son as an act of revenge.

The incident took place in January 2019. Panda had taken the Class I student on a two-wheeler, claiming that he would drop the child off at school. However, the boy never reached the school and went missing.

On the basis of a complaint lodged by the child's mother, police launched a search operation and recovered the boy's school identity card, bag and blood-stained shirt. Panda was later arrested from Sonepur district.

Police had then revealed that instead of taking the child to school, Panda allegedly took him to a place near the Tara Tarini shrine. He murdered the boy by crushing his head with a stone and dumped the body near the foothills of the Tara Tarini hills in an attempt to destroy evidence, police had said.

The decomposed body of Ansuman was subsequently recovered by police from the area. During interrogation, Panda confessed to the crime.

The case had triggered widespread public outrage due to the gruesome nature of the murder.