Madurai City police have arrested three juveniles in connection with Sunday’s murder of a Plus Two student, N.K. Nagaraj (17), in the process of robbing his mobile phone.
The police identified them as two school dropouts, aged 16 years, and a Class 10 student, aged 17 years. The dropouts were nabbed in a case of robbery in the past.
When the victim was walking to his house near Mahal LIC office, he was intercepted by the trio. One of them had sought his mobile phone to make an urgent call. However, the boy claimed that his pre-paid SIM card did not have enough credit balance to make a call. One of them said he had a SIM card with which he could make a call using Nagaraj’s mobile phone.
The victim obliged. After making the call, the boys tried to flee with the phone. “When Nagaraj followed them and demanded his cellphone, he was stabbed twice,” Commissioner of Police Shailesh Kumar Yadav said.
The boys ran away from the spot with his mobile phone and the boy succumbed to injuries.
The police cracked the case using the video footage of a closed circuit television camera that showed three persons and mobile phone call details. They have recovered the knife, the phone and blood-stained clothes.
Mr. Yadav said the boys robbed the phone for another boy who had lost his cellphone.
That the boys had carried a knife showed their intention. The stab injury severely damaged an artery, leading to profuse bleeding.
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Mr. Yadav said 52 school and college students were involved in 33 cases of various crimes reported in the city in the last one year. “Since we do not have records of first-time offenders, it becomes difficult to crack the cases unless they are caught red-handed,” he said.
The officer attributed the crimes by juveniles, including students, to the prevailing socio-economic conditions in the city. “They are all locals. No organised gang from outside is operating in the city,” he said.
The city police were deploying additional police force in Tallakulam and Koodal Pudur police stations with a sprawling jurisdiction, he added.
Deputy Commissioners of Police A.G. Babu (Traffic), P VE Arunshakthikumar (Law and Order), R. Jayanthi (Crime) and V. Eswaran (Armed Reserve) were present.
