12-year-old bludgeoned, body dumped in drain in Delhi

NEW DELHI: A 12-year-old boy was bludgeoned to death and his body dumped in a drain near the government school where he studied in southeast Delhi's Badarpur on Thursday. The boy's school bag containing textbooks was found nearby. Police have apprehended two juveniles in the case and said they murdered him after he saw them smoking and feared he would squeal to the school authorities.
The boy's parents said that he usually returned home from school by 6pm. When he didn't on Thursday, they searched for him before being told about the body found in the drain. The mother claimed that the Class IX student had requested the class teacher to move him to another section. "Some classmates older than him smoked and my son wasn't comfortable being with them," alleged Darpan Devi, the mother.
According to police, a woman called the police control room at 8.20pm on Thursday with the information that a boy had been killed and his body dumped near Badarpur Molarband Khan Government School in Khatushyam Park. Rajesh Deo, DCP (South-East) said, "The body of a boy aged around 12 years in school uniform was found in a drain. Saurabh Kumar's body was lying head down in water in the drain."
Deo added that 5-6 yards from the drain, a school bag, 4-5 blood-splattered stones and a blood-stained white coloured cotton gamcha (towel) were discovered. The body had multiple head injuries, apparently caused by a blunt object.
The boy's father works as a painter while his mother is a labourer in a company in the area. He was the only son and is survived by his parents, Harihar Paswan and Darpan Devi, and two sisters, one of whom is married. The boy's family blocked the Molarband-Badarpur road till the evening in protest. The kin received the body of the boy on Friday evening after the post-mortem.
His elder sister, Preeti, said her brother left for school around noon and returned by 6pm. "On Thursday when he hadn't come home by 6pm, I became worried but waited for another half an hour. But when he did not return by 6.30pm, I informed my mother who rushed home and we searched for him in the neighbourhood," said Preeti. "My mother also asked two of his friends, one of whom said he had returned from school at 3pm while the other said he saw him still in school."
The sister claimed that her brother was shifted to section C where the boys were older to him and drank alcohol, smoked and did drugs. "They taunted him and called him a dwarf and he wanted to return to his earlier section B. My mother even went to the school on Thursday and told his teacher about this. She then left for work," said Preeti. "In the CCTV footage that was shown to us, two boys can be seen grabbing my brother by the neck and forcing him to go with them. We suspect it was these boys who murdered him."
TOI tried to reach out to Mukesh Kumar, head of the school where the boy studied, but he declined from commenting on the matter.