A teenager’s birthday celebration on the streets of east Delhi turned into a delinquent rampage on Wednesday night as five minors allegedly murdered two men in separate incidents at two locations almost 4km apart over a span of 90 minutes — one for stopping them from drinking in public, and the other for resisting theft.
The victims, an egg seller and a graphic design company worker, fell prey to what has been a recurring problem in the Capital: heinous crimes committed by juveniles.
The Delhi Police said its apprehended all five accused, aged between 14 and 17 years.
According to police officers aware of the matter, the night of revelry began at around 10.30pm with alcohol being passed around between the underage boys at the Ghazipur paper market — which was all but empty at the time — not far from where they live. It was here that Ramesh Dataram, who operated an egg cart in the market, objected to the boys drinking in public and got into an alteration with them.
As the argument got heated, the boys, who were carrying a knife, allegedly stabbed the 49-year-old to death.
Police said the boys left his body in the market, and continued their street party unperturbed — drinking as they walked in the direction of New Ashok Nagar.
{{/usCountry}}Police said the boys left his body in the market, and continued their street party unperturbed — drinking as they walked in the direction of New Ashok Nagar.
{{/usCountry}}According to police, about an hour after the first murder, they reached the Jal Board Treatment Plant on Dallupura Road. The boys were out of alcohol by this time, and longing for something to eat, but did not have any money to buy food or drink.
Pappu Prasad, 30, a resident of Arrah in Bihar who worked as a helper at a graphic design company in Sahibabad, was walking towards his house at Dallupura village around midnight. The boys approached him, asked him for money, and when he resisted the attempted robbery, allegedly killed him by stabbing him multiple times in the chest.
Deputy commissioner of police (east) Abhishek Dhania said the first call came from locals around 1am on Thursday — to report a body lying near the Jal Board Treatment Plant on Dallupura Road.
“We found a lot of blood on the road and the deceased was stabbed multiple times,” he said. A second senior officer aware of the case said that Prasad was killed in a robbery attempt around 12.30am. “Prasad was killed when he resisted the robbery. The boys stabbed him in the chest and fled,” he added, asking not to be named.
Police were to soon discover that Prasad was not the first murder allegedly committed by the group.
Sunny Dataram, the son of the egg vendor at the Ghazipur paper market, was worried about his father all night. “When he didn’t return, I tried calling him but he didn’t answer. I thought he slept near the market or went to a friend’s home,” Sunny later wrote in his police complaint. “In the morning... he was found near a vacant shop in the paper market. His leg was covered in blood and it looked like he had injuries on his face too,” he added.
According to investigators, Dataram’s body was lying behind a liquor shop for about 11 hours before it was discovered.
The two murders were connected to the same group when police studied footage from CCTVs and traffic cameras around the Dallupura area while investigating Prasad’s killing. They spotted a group of boys in the vicinity of where Prasad was murdered, and, about an hour later, the same group was seen on CCTV cameras near the site of Dataram’s murder.
“We found the exact footage of the accused hitting the deceased (Dataram), who was sitting on a platform,” DCP Dhania said. “During the course of analysis of the two crime scenes, we found that both murders were committed by the same group of assailants. The CCTVs confirmed our suspicions.”
Dhania said that multiple teams were sent to catch the accused, and within hours, they were identified and caught. “They were planning to flee the city,” he said. Police have recovered the knife used in the attacks and bloodstained clothes from the houses of the accused, officers said.