Ghaziabad: Days after a 42-year-old man was shot and abducted in Loni, police arrested two more suspects near the Nithora underpass on Saturday, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to 23, officials said.Ghaziabad police formed 20 different teams to recover the body, which the suspects allegedly dumped in the Upper Ganga Canal in Meerut, according to officials. (Representative photo)They added that the victim’s body has not yet been recovered.Ghaziabad police formed 20 different teams to recover the body, which the suspects allegedly dumped in the Upper Ganga Canal in Meerut, according to officials.Police said the 23 people arrested in connection with the suspected murder include the two prime suspects whose names appeared in the FIR. All 23 suspectsare residents of Ganauli, police added.Police identified the victim as Omkar Singh, a resident of Ganauli village. Around 7am on May 30, he was on his way to a market when he was allegedly shot several times and kidnapped from a railway underpass at Loni’s Khadkhadi in a Maruti Swift.Police found six to seven spent bullets and bloodstains at the crime scene.“The suspects told us they kidnapped Singh and dumped his body in the Upper Ganga Canal near Pooth Khas in Meerut. They fired six to seven shots at him. Since recovering the body is crucial to the case, we have deployed 20 teams for an extensive search between Meerut and Aligarh, a distance of roughly 100–150km,” DCP (rural) Surendra Nath Tiwari told HT. The DCP added that the search will extend to further areas if the body is not recovered soon.Based on Singh’s family’s complaint, an FIR was registered at Loni police station against five named suspects and other unidentified persons under BNS sections for kidnapping and attempted murder the same day. Officials said they also added sections of the BNS related to the destruction of evidence and criminal conspiracy to the case.According to officials, a road rage incident between the suspects and Singh’s son on May 20 escalated into the kidnapping and suspected murder of his father.“Of the 23 arrested, only two were involved in kidnapping and shooting Singh. They told police that after shooting multiple rounds at Singh, they took him towards Meerut, where they dumped the body in the canal. Several other suspects are absconding. The remaining 21 arrested suspects are those who gave shelter to the prime suspects,” DCP added.