14-yr-old’s murder: Assailants detained

A day after Prashant Singh, 14, was mercilessly assaulted and subsequently died because of severe internal injuries, the Delhi Police are waiting for the post-mortem report to come in before levelling suitable charges against his four minor assailants.

A day after Prashant Singh, 14, was mercilessly assaulted and subsequently died because of severe internal injuries, the Delhi Police are waiting for the post-mortem report to come in before levelling suitable charges against his four minor assailants.

HT Image

“We had detained the four minors accused of perpetrating the incident immediately after Prashant’s body was recovered from a park near his house in Vishwas Nagar and are questioning them,” said a senior police officer investigating the incident.

According to police, Prashant was waylaid by four minors near a provisions store and was found unconscious in a park near his residence hours later on Saturday evening.

“Though the victim’s family has claimed that he was being harassed by the said minors— one of whom is the elder brother of a girl whom Prashant is understood to have been romantically involved with — for some time now, we do not believe there is a love angle to the incident,” the officer said.

According to police, his assailants had inflicted grave internal injuries — including a concussion that finally led to his death — with their bare hands.

“Though my son had told me he was being bothered by some seniors in school and that he had even told his class teacher about it, the school took no action in the matter. There is absolutely no discipline in the school what with students allowed to come and leave whenever they wish,” said Dhananjay Singh, Prashant’s father, a home tutor by profession.

Sources said the assailants had confessed to the crime and were under detention at the Bindapur Police Station.

“They have confessed to having beaten him up unmindful of the grave injuries that they had caused during the thrashing. We have detained them till the post-mortem report is received from DDU hospital on Monday and postponed criminal proceedings against them till then,” the officer added.