Bengaluru, Feb 28: A tenth standard student was walking home with a prize and a garland when he was stabbed to death by three friends here on Monday. Harsharaj (16), a student of the Government High School, Yelahanka, had just been honoured at the school annual day for excelling in sports.
The friends surrounded him near the railway track in Gandhinagar, just 200 metres from the school, at 3 pm. They picked a fight and attacked him with a dagger.
He fell and started bleeding profusely from his chest and abdomen. The assailants fled, Deputy Commissioner of Police Labhu Ram said. Some onlookers shifted Harsharaj to a government hospital, but it was too late.
“He was an average student, but was dignified in his conduct. He wanted to be a sportsman and was concentrating on volleyball,” Vivekananda, vice-principal of the school, said.
Harsharaj had been missing classes over the past few months, and the staff had told his parents about his poor attendance, Vivekananda said.
Swift detention
Police detained two suspects within three hours of the murder. “Both are minors, and have sustained injuries in the attack. They are being treated at a hospital,” Ram said.
Initial investigations suggest the fight was over a girl, police said. The third accused is still at large. The three accused were old students of the school. One of them is now a first year student at the Government PU College on the same campus. The other two quit and joined another school a year ago, police said.
Leelavathi, chairperson, School Development and Monitoring Committee, described Harsharaj as a “good boy”. His parents were in shock and refused to speak to the media.
The kidnapped schoolboy was rescued by the police and reunited with his parents. Son of a gift shop owner from Basavanagudi area in Bengaluru, Chirag has reportedly told police that decided to make some quick money to spend on cricket betting and gambling after learning kidnap tricks from the ‘Crime Patrol’. According to police, Chirag reached a private school around 3pm on Tuesday on a Bounce rental bike and zeroed in on a fourth standard student who was walking out of school. He told the boy he was his father's friend and that he required help to search for a relative who had gone missing. The boy believed Chirag and rode pillion on the bike. Chirag then engaged the boy in conversation and learnt about his father's business and got his mobile phone number. He then made a call to the boy's father, demanded Rs 5 lakh and warned him against approaching cops. However, the boy's father alerted Cottonpet police and special teams were formed to crack the case. While Cottonpet inspector Venkatesh TC's squad verified CCTV footage in and around the school, Chamarajpet inspector BG Kumaraswamy's team started tracking the suspect's mobile phone movements. An hour later, the suspect's location was traced to a hotel on the Lavelle Road-St Mark's Road stretch. Police rushed there, rescued the boy and arrested Chirag.
Comments
Chilling!!! O God, what is happening here??? May God almighty give enough strength to parents of the child to bear this tragic incident.
Add new comment