Ghaziabad: Angry over friendship with girl, 2 minors murder 13-year-old friend

Police said the prime suspect is aged 15 years and is a student of Class 10 while his accomplice is aged 12 and studies in Class 7

The Sahibabad police on Thursday took into custody two minor boys who allegedly planned and murdered their 13-year-old friend allegedly over his friendship with a girl known to them, senior police officers said.

The murder was committed at an isolated underconstruction highrise. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

Explaining the motive for the murder, police said the deceased boy was friendly with the girl who later became close to the prime suspect.He asked the deceased to snap ties with the girl but he refused. Senior officers said the prime suspect and his accomplice lured the victim to the eighth floor of a vacant high-rise and stabbed him to death with a knife on Monday afternoon and disfigured his face with a stone to conceal his identity.

Police said the prime suspect is aged 15 years and is a student of Class 10 while his accomplice is aged 12 and studies in Class 7. The victim was 13 years old and studied in class 8. Police said all three were friends and lived in a locality under jurisdiction of the Sahibabad police station.

After their son disappeared on March 3, the boy’s family gave a missing person complaint to the police on March 4 at Sahibabad police station.

“All three were friends and the suspect boys used to visit our home often. All three were together on March 3 in the afternoon and later, they probably went towards the high-rise. The two boys were helping us search for my son since Monday. After we gave a missing person complaint (on March 4), police scanned the CCTV footage, and found all three boys going together towards the high-rise,” the victim’s father said.

“The police questioned the suspect juveniles in detail and the whole crime was unravelled. They told police that the deceased was friendly with a (minor) girl for the past one-and-half years. The prime suspect also came in contact with the same girl on Instagram around eight months ago. He then asked the deceased to snap ties with her, but he did not pay heed. So, the prime suspect planned the murder and also roped in his friend. They took the victim to the eighth floor of a vacant high-rise on the pretext of preparing reels,” said Shweta Kumari Yadav, assistant commissioner of police, Sahibabad.

“The prime suspect had asked his friend to arrange a knife, and he did. On reaching the eighth floor, they prepared some reels, and later attacked the boy with the knife as planned. They stabbed him multiple times and later crushed his head and face with bricks/stones before fleeing the spot,” Yadav said.

The body of the deceased remained on the eighth floor of the high-rise, which is about a kilometre from where the boy lived, for over two days till the police retrieved it on Wednesday night.

Based on complaint by the boy’s father, the police registered an FIR under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 137(2) (kidnapping) against unidentified persons at the Sahibabad police station on March 4.

“We came to know from locals that the deceased and the prime suspect also had a fight previously, and the matter had reached the local police post. The two boys crushed the face/head of the victim in order to conceal his identity. The police late Wednesday night recovered the body from the eighth-floor of the vacant high-rise as well as the bloodstained clothes and his slippers. The weapon used for murder (a knife) was also recovered,” said an investigator attached to the case investigation.