He is not 18 yet.

The boy started working as a salesman at a clothes shop after he failed SSC exams. With a larger than life dream to be rich overnight, he fled from the shop and started treading the path of crime to realise his audacious aspiration, detectives said today.

He threatened and tried to extort Tk 20 lakh from his father's employer, a businessman in Dhaka's Gulshan, posing as a "top Indian criminal".

He even planted a fake bomb on the businessman's car, to validate his claim. But his plan fell through after detectives arrested him from Munshiganj area yesterday, AKM Hafiz Akhter, additional commissioner (detectives) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told a press briefing at DMP media centre today.

Police did not disclose his identity as he is still a minor.

Hafiz said the boy's father was the caretaker of the businessman's house in the latter's ancestral village in Munshiganj. The boy on January 11 made a phone call to the businessman and demanded the money, threatening to "blow away his family along with his car", the additional commissioner said.

The next day, the businessman saw a bomb-like object stuck under his car and informed police about it. DMP's bomb disposal unit rushed there and found it to be an ineffective object which was destroyed later, the DB official said.

Detectives started investigating after the businessman filed a case with Badda Police Station. They later identified the boy and arrested him, he added.

During primary interrogation, the boy told detectives that he made the plan two months back and learned how to make threats on the phone and craft bomb-like objects -- going through YouTube content, Indian films and serials. He learned how to speak Hindi through watching the serials as well, the DB official said.

He later made the bomb-like object and fitted it to the businessman's car when he went to Munshiganj's Louhajang recently.

The DB official urged citizens to inform police whenever they get such calls.   

The Daily Star could not independently verify the incident and claims.