Police are re-examining the murder of an eight-year-old boy who was abducted as he walked home from school. 

Vishal Mehrotra went missing over 40 years ago on his way home to Putney, south west London, on the day of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding in July 1981. 

His body was found in woodlands in Rogate, West Sussex, seven months later. 

The BBC reports that Sussex Police recently visited Vishambar Mehrotra, Vishal’s dad, to say that detectives had been directed to “advance” the case. 

This comes after the BBC released a new true crime podcast named ‘Vishal’ which brought to light new evidence in the case. 

The broadcaster said that in the 1990s convicted paedophile Nicholas Douglass was found to have written a document entitled ‘Vishal’. 

When asked by the BBC in 2020 why he named it after the murdered boy he said: ““It’s the first [name] that came into my head because it had been in the press. [There was] massive publicity and at the time. It was the first Asian name I could think of. That’s the honest truth.” 

A spokesperson for Sussex Police said: “Detectives visited the father of Vishal Mehrotra to offer further reassurance that all viable lines of enquiry, including from any recent media coverage, will be pursued. 

“The Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team continues to assess any further lines of enquiry for criminal investigation as a result of a Channel 4 documentary and BBC podcast, recently broadcast. 

“Senior detectives met with Vishal’s father on Wednesday (May 10) to discuss the documentary and podcast series and to inform him that some further enquiries were being carried out as a result. 

“The force also apologised for an oversight during an investigation conducted in the mid-1990s by Sussex Police, which had a potential link to Vishal’s death. It concerned a document titled ‘Vishal’ that was found as part of an investigation into historic child sexual abuse at Muntham House School in West Sussex. 

“The document was found by police in 1996 and enquiries were carried out in the context of the Muntham House investigation, but it wasn’t until 2019 during the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that any potential link was made to the murder of Vishal Mehrotra. 

“Sussex Police apologised to Vishal’s father that this link was not made sooner.”