BERHAMPUR: In a shocking incident, a 12-year-old madrasa student in Nayagarh was allegedly murdered after being sexual assaulted by five of his fellow inmates, all minors. The offenders dumped the victim’s body in a septic tank of the institution after strangulating him.
The juvenile offenders are all in the age group of 14-15 and have been arrested. They were produced before the juvenile justice board at Nayagarh which sent them to a juvenile correction home at Angul for 13 days, said inspector-in-charge of Ranapur Asishdev Sahoo.
The victim, a resident of Badamba in Cuttack district, was studying in the madrasa since the last one year. On September 2, the educational institution authorities reported to the police after failing to locate the boy.
Police registered a case and began investigation and later recovered the boy’s body from an abandoned septic tank in the madrasa.
Investigation revealed that a 15-year-old student had unnatural sex with the victim for nearly a year. Recently, when the victim protested and threatened to inform his parents, the 15 year-old abused and roughed him up.
On August 31, police said, the 15-year-old along with four inmates dragged the victim to the septic tank and pushed him into it. However, the victim survived, though with injuries. Two days later, the main offender along with others tried to have unnatural sex with the victim. When the victim resisted, they throttled him and dumped the body in the septic tank. Later in the afternoon, they informed the headmaster about absence of the victim.
Sahoo said, police collected CCTV footage and interrogated others in the madrasa which led the cops to the 15 year-old boy. The footage showed the six, including the victim, going towards the septic tank but only five returned.
Further interrogation unraveled the ghastly crime and the five reportedly confessed to the crime. The victim’s body was retrieved on September 3 from the septic tank and a murder case was registered.
On Saturday, all five accused were presented before the juvenile justice board. The victim’s father had reached the madrasa on September 2 after his son was reported missing. He requested to see the CCTV footage but was not cooperated by the authorities. Sahoo said further investigation is on to unearth the facts.