ONGOLE: A 15-year-old boy allegedly set a 12-year-old on fire for not passing a letter he had written to a girl at a government school in Ardhaveedu of Prakasam district on Saturday.
Eyewitnesses said the victim ran out of his classroom engulfed in flames before teachers managed to douse the fire and shift him to a local hospital. He was later taken to Guntur Government General Hospital.
The boy’s condition is understood to be serious.
Ardhaveedu sub inspector SV Ravindra Reddy said the Class VII student, in an oral statement, told police the teenager, an intermediate first year student of his school, approached him in the morning and requested him to hand the letter to a girl studying in Class X, but he refused to comply and tore the note apart.
Infuriated, the intermediate student doused the preteen with petrol while he was sitting by his classroom’s window and set him on fire around 1.30 pm. It is learnt that the accused was taken into custody for questioning.