The Delhi Police will seek permission from the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to try five minors as adults for allegedly killing two men in east Delhi on February 19.
“The accused exhibited a violent streak. They had several videos of violent nature in their mobile phones. We’ll put an application before JJB to treat them as adults at the stage of trial,” a senior police officer said.
The accused — aged between 14 and 17 — allegedly killed two men, Pappu Prasad and Ramesh Dataram, in separate incidents in New Ashok Nagar and Ghazipur. The victims were found in markets with multiple stab injuries. Police said the five minors were drunk at the time of the incidents and were apprehended on Thursday.
According to police, the boys had an argument with Dataram after he asked to leave from the Ghazipur paper market and not consume alcohol in the area. This enraged them and they stabbed him in the leg, following which he collapsed. He was lying there for some hours before passersby could spot him, police said.
In another incident, Prasad, who worked as a helper in a private company in Ghaziabad was on his way home at 10.30pm, when the minors killed him. “It looked like the accused killed him in a robbery bid. Prasad’s belongings were missing,” police said.
The application will be submitted under Section 15 of the Juvenile Justice Act, which means “if child at least 16 years old is accused of committing a very serious crime, a Juvenile Justice Board will first evaluate the child’s mental and physical ability to have carried out the crime, their understanding of what the crime means, and the situation in which the crime was committed”.
{{/usCountry}}The application will be submitted under Section 15 of the Juvenile Justice Act, which means “if child at least 16 years old is accused of committing a very serious crime, a Juvenile Justice Board will first evaluate the child’s mental and physical ability to have carried out the crime, their understanding of what the crime means, and the situation in which the crime was committed”.
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