KRISHNAGIRI: A 13-year-old schoolboy was arrested on Thursday for killing his 9-year-old hostel mate with a boulder after the junior refused to have unnatural sex with him, police said.
According to police, the victim was found murdered in the hostel bathroom on Monday. Kaveripattinam police, who first booked the case under section IPC 174 (suspicious death), took three days to crack the case as the accused attempted to divert the case by accusing others, including the hostel warden.
Police were able to crack the case when one of the hostel inmates said the accused had hidden a blood-stained pair of pants in his room on Monday evening.
As per the investigation, the accused forced the victim to have unnatural sex on Monday in the hostel bathroom but after this incident, he refused to cooperate any further with the accused. Irritated by this, the accused kicked the victim, who fainted. Fearing that the issue would be leaked, the accused smashed his head with a boulder and returned to his room.
A few of the hostel students spotted blood stains on his pants and questioned him about it, but he brushed off their queries and hid the evidence.
A while later, another group of hostel boys who had gone to the bathroom was shocked to see the 9-year-old lying in a pool of blood. They immediately informed the hostel warden, who reportedly took the boy to Krishnagiri government hospital, where he was declared brought dead.
According to police sources, the accused had earlier claimed that the hostel warden had locked the bathroom from the inside and it was he who had forced the 9-year-old into unnatural sex and then murdered him.
But with the post-mortem report and circumstantial evidence, the police zeroed in on their suspect.
Speaking to Express, Kaveripattinam inspector Zakir Hussain said the case, which was registered under IPC 174, has been converted as a murder case under section IPC 302. The sections in the act of Child Saftey Protection Act have also included in the case. The accused has been arrested and sent to Juvenile Court in Salem as he is a minor.
Police sources further said the accused had earlier studied in a school in Bangalore. Because of his misconduct, the school had asked his parents to take him out. The school correspondent claimed that the accused had misbehaved in several instances and that they had summoned his parents and told them to take him out. Recently, he had stolen a mobile phone. But since his parents had pleaded with the correspondent to pardon their son, the administration had let them off with a warning.