A four-year-old boy was allegedly kidnapped and bludgeoned with a stone by a teenage neighbour out of revenge in central Delhi’s Anand Parbat area, police said. The boy had gone missing on Friday, when after returning home from tuition, he went out to play in the Baljeet Nagar area near his house, police said.
A missing person case was filed at the Anand Parbat Police Station at the boy’s mother’s complaint. “During the investigation, CCTV footage from the locality was analysed, and the boy was seen with a neighbour, later identified as a 15-year-old school dropout. He was apprehended from his residence,” an officer said. Upon interrogation, the teenager disclosed that both families lived in the same premises on rent and there had been quarrels between them, police said.
On Friday afternoon, he had taken his landlord’s motorcycle and abandoned it in another locality. When the victim’s mother informed the landlord, his father scolded and beat him. He decided to kill the younger boy to avenge the beating, the officer said.
Around 6.30 pm, the juvenile lured the child to a secluded space in Ramjas Park, where he pushed him from a cliff, about 30 feet high. He then struck the child on the head with a stone. The boy did not die and was found in critical condition. He was rushed to Lady Hardinge Medical College Hospital and later shifted to Kalawati Saran Hospital, where he remained in the ICU for two days and then died, the officer said. A tense atmosphere prevails in the area since the killing. Scores of locals gathered when the boy’s father carried his body to Anand Parbat Police Station and shouted for justice.
The teenager, a resident of Taliwalan Basti and a class 10 dropout, has been sent to a correctional home. His father runs a sweets shop in the locality, police said.
