Ghaziabad, Sep 7 - A 14-year-old boy was kidnapped here and later murdered in a Uttar Pradesh town by his father's gambling partner, to whom the child's father owed money they had won in gambling, police said Monday.

The incident came to light Monday when police nabbed the culprits and recovered the child's clothes.

The boy, a student of Class 10, was kidnapped by his father's gambling partner and neighbour Chetan Prakash Saturday, police said.

When the boy's father Prem Kumar Arora found his son missing, he lodged a complaint with police and said he suspected that Prakash had a role behind his son going missing.

On the basis of Arora's complaint, police Sunday night called Prakash and his 13-year-old son for questioning.

'Prakash, during sustained interrogation, confessed that he with the help of his son and one other accomplice had kidnapped the child and had taken him to Muzaffarnagar where they had murdered him and thrown the body into a canal,' a police officer said.