E-Paper
Teen’s birthday bash turns into month-long ordeal
The incident came to light when the victim’s father filed a complaint at the Krishna Nagar police station on April 8. Seven classmates of the victim were arrested by police.
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The decision to throw a birthday party after stealing ₹2,000 from his house turned disastrous for a 14-year-old class 8 student, who ended up losing ₹12.5 lakh meant for land registration to his classmates after being threatened and blackmailed by them for over a month, police claimed following the arrest of seven minor accused.
The incident came to light when the victim’s father filed a complaint at the Krishna Nagar police station on April 8. An FIR was registered and the seven juvenile accused named by the victim’s father were taken into custody on Thursday, bringing closure to the month-long extortion ordeal of the victim, a student of Awadh Collegiate on Kanpur Road.
Explaining the sequence of events, Krishna Nagar SHO Pradhyuman Kumar Singh said, “A sum of ₹12.5 lakh meant for land registration was kept in the house of the minor victim. The boy first stole ₹2,000 to throw a birthday party to a group of classmates. Another group asked for a treat, and he agreed despite initial refusal. The other group, including some outsiders, somehow got to know that the boy (victim) had stolen money from his house. They saw it as an opportunity and began demanding money from the boy. When he refused, they threatened to inform his parents and kill him.”
The SHO added, “Under pressure, the victim stole more money from his house and gave it to the juvenile accused. He recently met the accused behind the college and gave the rest of the money ( ₹5 lakh) kept at his home to them.”
According to the SHO, the victim’s father came to know about the matter and filed a complaint with the police. Two teams were formed and after analysing CCTV footage and call detail records, the police took seven juvenile accused into custody and sent them to the protection home.
According to the police, the juvenile accused disclosed during interrogation that on April 2, they took ₹5 lakh from their classmate after threatening and assaulting him. They also revealed that they had taken money from him on several occasions and divided it among themselves. “They bought a car, bikes and high-end mobile phones in the name of their relatives,” the SHO said, adding two bikes, a scooty, a four-wheeler, two expensive phones and ₹1.49 lakh in cash were recovered from the juvenile accused’s possession.”
