12-year-old boy killed over ‘chillum’ in Purnia, six teenagers detained

Patna: Six teenaged friends were detained on Friday in connection with the murder of a 12-year-old boy in Purnia districts’s Raghuvanshnagar police station area. Sonu Kumar, was allegedly abducted, beaten to death and then buried in a pit at Balutol Nawtolia village.

The accused, all between 13 and 15 years old, allegedly killed Sonu over a dispute about a stolen chillum (clay pipe for smoking) worth Rs 150, police said.Police said that Sonu went missing on Aug 30, following which his family searched for him extensively before filing a missing person's report.Based on the family’s suspicion, the police detained one of the accused, who confessed to the crime, Raghuvanshnagar station house officer (SHO) Shishupal Kumar said.

“Subsequently, five others, involved in the murder, were detained. Following their confession, the body was retrieved from a four-ft-deep pit. The body was handed over to the family after postmortem at Purnia Government Medical College Hospital,” he said, all accused are being questioned further.The victim’s father, Ashok Chaudhary, said that Sonu, third among his five sons, fell into the bad company of some local teenagers.

“He became addicted to smoking ganja. A week before his disappearance, a local teenager accused Sonu of stealing a smoking pipe, and brutally assaulted him along with his friends. They forcibly took my son on a bicycle to a field far away from the village. There, they tied Sonu’s hands and feet to a tree with a bicycle chain, before beating him up severely.

After the beating, they left him and ran away. When he regained consciousness, he came home.

When we went to the homes of the accused teenagers to complain, they threatened to kill my son if he was found alone. However, knowing my son's mistake, we let the matter go at that time,” he said.On Aug 30, Sonu went out to play at a friend’s invitation around 5pm, after which he disappeared.“During police interrogation, the mastermind revealed that around 6pm, he, along with his five friends, took Sonu to a deserted area 400m away from the village.

There, they brutally beat Sonu and killed him. To ensure no one got wind of the murder, they waited until midnight to dispose of the body. Seizing the opportunity, they sprinkled salt on the corpse and buried it in a pit under a lemon tree,” the SHO said.The day after, noticing an increased activity of Sonu’s family and police in the village and surrounding areas, they feared that the levelled soil under the lemon tree might alert the cops. They allegedly devised a plan to relocate it. That night, they allegedly exhumed the body and reburied it in a four-ft-deep pit near a canal in Balutol Nawtolia, 500m away from Sonu’s home, the SHO said.