Two minors held for killing classmate

Two juveniles were on Monday taken into custody for killing their 15-year-old classmate over a petty issue and have been sent to a juvenile reformation home, police said on Monday.

The class 9 students, who reside in Hari Nagar area of west Delhi, were apprehended from Haryana's Jhajjar on charges of killing their classmate Subham Jindal.

Police said that Jindal was beaten to death by wooden sticks around 6 p.m. on Sunday and his body was recovered around 3.30 a.m. on Monday from a vacant plot behind a petrol pump in Najafgarh area in west Delhi.

Jindal, who studied in Krishna Model School situated in Najafgarh, was persuaded by the two to come outside for cycling on Sunday evening.

Police said that a complaint that Jindal was missing was lodged around 11 p.m. on Sunday when his family members failed to locate him and approached the Chhawla police station.

"As the juveniles were the last to be seen with the victim, we apprehended them from their ancestral home in Jhajjar on Monday," Deputy Commissioner of Police R.A. Sanjeev told IANS.

The official said that the juveniles went to Jhajjar a few hours after the commission of crime.

In their interrogation, they revealed that the reason was an old grudge of being punished by a teacher on Jindal's complaint against them over some issue a few days ago.

"The juveniles were punished by a teacher sometimes ago on the complaint on the victim. And, they had a grudge over the issue. It seems that the juveniles just wanted to teach a lesson to the victim, but their motive was not to kill him," said Sanjeev.

Police said that the arrested juveniles also had a streak of jealousy against the victim, a resident of Roshan Vihar in West Delhi's Najafgarh area, as he was the class monitor.

AIIMS' psychiatric department head, S.K. Khandelwal declined to comment over the issue without proper study of the perpetrators.

"It will be very difficult to comment on the issue. Without talking to the apprehended children, the reason of their act cannot be ascertained," Khandelwal told IANS.

"It is not necessary that they have criminal tendency. There are several reasons of committing crimes by any child. But it is not a trend," he said.