Two minors held for student’s murder

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, September 18

A day after the murder of Vikas Gautam, a Class XI student of Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 7, here, the local police arrested two minor boys. The accused are stated to be “close friends” of the victim.

One of the accused is a school student, while the other is a Sector 12 school dropout, who was earlier booked in a theft case and is a neighbour of the victim. The body of the victim was handed over to the family by the police after a postmortem at the Civil Hospital. However, the weapon used in the crime was yet to be recovered, said investigating officer Bhagwan Dass. 

The police said the incident occurred at 2.30 pm yesterday. The two accused, one of them a Class IX student, along with several friends, were waiting outside the school to attack another minor student, who had lodged a complaint with the Principal, Dr Satish Sharma, about his missing mobile a few days ago. The police said the matter was sorted out after the Principal directed the disciplinary committee of the school to locate the mobile within 10 minutes. One of the accused had sought pardon after the mobile was recovered from his possession.

However, to take revenge against the complainant, the accused student had called his friends, including the main accused, to teach him a lesson. As soon as the complainant came out of the school, the accused started beating him up. Meanwhile, one of the accused took out a knife to hit the complainant, but the latter sat down and the knife hit the victim in the chest, who started bleeding profusely and died on his way to the hospital. 

DCP Abhishek Jorwal said two accused (both minors) were arrested and would be produced before a duty magistrate. 

Earlier, the victim’s family members held a protest, saying that they would not allow postmortem. However, the Principal told them that it was necessary for carrying out the probe in the case and their denial would make the case against the accused weak. After this, they relented.

Meanwhile, high drama was seen on the Zirakpur-Shimla highway as hundreds of residents of Rally village in Sector 12 here blocked the road, seeking the arrest of the accused.  The police had a tough time convincing them that the accused had been nabbed. The protesters later lifted the dharna.