Three Class 9 students of Sitapur district, 80 km from Lucknow, have been arrested for killing a Class 7 student of the same school, the police said.
The body of Atul, 13, a student of Raja Surya Baksh Singh Inter College, was fished out of a pond near Saraiya village on August 27.
The SHO of Kamlapur police station Anil Singh said during investigation a villager mentioned he had seen Atul bathing with Amit, Rajesh, and Mohit in the pond.
But when the police picked up the three — all 15-year-olds — for interrogation, they said Atul slipped in the pond and drowned. "The postmortem report of Atul stated he was strangulated. So I picked up the trio for interrogation and they confessed that they had killed Atul and then dumped his body in the pond." The murder was over a verbal duel the boys had at school. The boys told the police their intention was not to kill Atul but to intimidate him.
(Names of all accused changed)