A 13-year-old boy in India was arrested by police for his involvement in the murder of an 11-year-old friend he had allegedly stoned to death. Police were able to locate and arrest the boy after receiving a tip-off about the crime, which took place in the Hamirpur districts of Uttar Pradesh.
According to India Today, a team of investigators led by inspector in-charge of Sumerpur police station, Virendra Pratap Singh, interrogated the accused boy and got a confession. The boy told the police that he was friends with the victim identified only as Subbi. He had borrowed some money amounting to Rs. 60 ($0.82) from the Subbi but failed to pay him back when his friend demanded him to return the money he was loaned.
The boy apparently had been gambling and used up the money his family gave him to purchase some things for their house. He lost all the money from gambling with Subbi and their other friends and got scared of the repercussions when he would return home empty handed. He decided to borrow the amount from Subbi, but his friend kept nagging him for the money, which led to a fight between them.
"Subbi was abusing me when I took him towards the forest and started fighting with him. I knocked him down when he picked up a stone lying nearby to kill me," the boy confessed. He said he picked up the same stone and bashed it onto Subbi’s head. His friend fell to the ground and blood started to ooze from his head.
The teenage boy told police that Subbi was still breathing when he dragged him towards a bush in an effort to hide his body. He then fled the area and threw the stone in a drain after which he attempted to wash off the blood on his clothes with the water from the same drain before heading home.
Subbi’s body was found on Wednesday by authorities shredded to about 11 pieces after wild animals had gotten hold of it.
The accused teenager will be sent to a juvenile home after all legal procedures have been completed. Both boys had known each other for the last five months before Subbi’s death.
