Noida boy used bat, pizza cutter to kill

NOIDA: The boy was weak in his studies. In their 14th floor flat in Noida Extension, he sat on a sofa with his books on Monday evening. His mother did not like that. She told him to move to the dining table and read. He did not. She grew angry, slapped him and told him to do sit-ups. Yet, he did not listen. Now, livid, she slapped him again. A little later, they went out to fetch dinner from a nearby takeaway. Then, mother, son, and 12-year-old daughter sat and had dinner together. Soon after, the mother and daughter went to sleep.

The boy, too, went to his room, but only to get a cricket bat. Then he picked up a sharp pizza cutter and a pair of scissors and headed to the room where his mother and sister slept. He attacked his mother first, and then his sister, who woke up screaming. Between 10 and 11 that night, a difficult teenager became a murderer.

On Saturday, police put together this chilling account of the double murder after talking for hours to the 16-yearold, who was brought to Noida from Varanasi, where he was found after a four-day hunt.

The boy's version painted the picture of a teenager struggling with an inferiority complex and jealousy, fuelled by his perception that his sister was more loved among the two and the frequent beatings and scoldings he received as he floundered in studies.

Loner in school, angry & jealous at home

Boy Committed The Crime On His Own, No Other Conspiracy Involved: Investigators

In September, his cellphone, too, had been taken away. "He told us his parents gave more love and care to his sister than him. He also said he had once planned to commit suicide by jumping off their flat's balcony," said a police officer. Police claimed the boy had confessed to the crime.

TOI also spoke to the boy's father, who said every family tries to discipline children for their own good. "I don't know what led to this. He had not shown any such behaviour in the past. We are introspecting," he said. The boy was eventually tracked through a phone call he made to his father on Friday. He mostly sobbed, mumbled a few words and hung up. The four days as fugitive from law, during which he travelled aimlessly from Delhi to Himachal to Jharkhand to Uttar Pradesh, had reduced the Class 10 student to an emotional wreck, police said, explaining his emotional call to his father at 9am using a phone he had borrowed from a stranger on a Varanasi road.

ANoida police team flew to Varanasi and found the boy sitting on the stairs of Dashashwamedh ghat at 4.30pm. "He started crying when we detained him," said a police officer who was part of the team that went to Varanasi. "He wept and wept and said he was sorry for what he had done."

Police said the boy had committed the crime on his own, and there was no other conspiracy involved. Investigators also distanced themselves from earlier theories about the boy being influenced by violent videogames he played regularly on his cellphone and parents' laptops. "His crime underlines the need to understand the psychology of a child feeling discriminated vis-a-vis siblings," said a police officer.

"The boy told us he was scolded and beaten by his mother on Monday afternoon. He was studying on a sofa but his mother told him to do so properly and sit at the dining table," Noida police chief Love Kumar said. "But he refused, at which he was allegedly beaten up and asked to do sit-ups. The boy said he refused and was beaten up again," Kumar said, adding the juvenile lost his cool and started plotting a way to get back at her.

Later, in the evening, they went to the local market and returned with dinner around 8.30pm. The boy's father was away in Gujarat on a business trip. "The three had dinner together and went to bed around 10pm. But the boy went back to his mother's room to attack her," said an investigator. "The woman screamed and her minor daughter woke up and tried to rescue her. The boy beat and stabbed her to death too."

By the time he was finished, the boy's hands and clothes were covered with blood. He changed, took around Rs 1.5 lakh cash from the house, put it in a backpack and locked the apartment from outside, police said. Before that, he remembered to take the landline and intercom off the hook. The boy was seen on CCTV cameras leaving the 14th floor apartment around 11.15pm on December 4. He carried his mother's cellphone.

To avoid meeting the society guards in the lobby, he took the lift to the basement, walked out and took a cab to New Delhi railway station. From there, police said, he boarded a Jammu-bound train but got off at Chandigarh. He took a bus from there and reached Shimla. But he changed his mind and returned to Chandigarh, from where he took a train to Ranchi. But he didn't stay put there either and took another train to reach Mughalsarai on Friday morning. He reached Varanasi from there by bus. Police said the boy lost the cash bag somewhere along the way. Most of his train travels were ticketless.

Emotionally drained and exhausted, he contacted his father. "He broke down and cried. But he did not specify his whereabouts and disconnected," Love Kumar said. The family informed Noida police, who informed cops in Mughalsarai. A Noida police team took a flight to Varanasi. In the meantime, the person whose cellphone the boy had used was contacted. That helped zero in on his location. "It seems the boy was frustrated for some time. The murder seems a result of past behavioural changes," Kumar added.

The bodies of the boy's mother (42) and sister were discovered on December 5 after his father, who could not get through to his family, called relatives and neighbours who alerted the police.