We noticed change in his behaviour: mother of murder accused

Recalls her juvenile son failed in exams, came home intoxicated and had started keeping to himself

“We noticed a change in his behaviour only a few months ago. He failed in his Class XI examinations, started coming home intoxicated and had stopped talking to us,” said the mother of the 17-year-old boy who was apprehended for his alleged involvement in the murder of a gym trainer in Najafgarh on May 21.

The minor had told the police that he wanted to impress gangsters and wanted to join them.

His 50-year-old mother, sitting at their double-storey house in Najafgarh, said that the minor studied in a private school till Class X, after which they shifted him to a government school due to financial constraints. “Weeks later, the principal of his new school called us and said that he did not attend school. We scolded him, but nothing happened. He failed in his Class XI exams and said he did not want to study anymore,” she said.

The boy wanted his parents to open a grocery store for him, but was told that since they had a 19-year-old daughter to marry, finances would not allow them to open a store at the moment. The mother said that he had been spending time at home, mostly using the phone, since a year.

“About a month-and-a-half ago, I noticed that he had started keeping to himself completely. The boy, who used to sleep next to me and talk to me all the time, had stopped talking. One week before the incident, he had come home drunk. I had beaten him black and blue,” she recalled.

She said that the minor had never shared whom he used to spend his time with outside the house. “A month ago, my brother lost his son at birth. I had gone to his house for a week. That was when my daughter called me to say two boys had come to our house and they looked suspicious. When I asked my son about them, he dodged the question,” she said.

The mother said that her husband, an employee at a private company in Connaught Place, is a religious man and is a teetotaller. None of their relatives has a criminal background, she claimed. The minor’s elder brother works at a company in Mumbai. “We have no idea how he started keeping bad company,” the mother said.

On the day of the incident, the mother said, he had gone out twice after receiving phone calls — once around 12.30 p.m. and then again around 4 p.m. “Around 6 p.m., my daughter came to know that someone had been murdered in the main market area,” she said. Unaware, she asked the daughter to call up the son to check on him. His phone was switched off. The police arrived at their house around 8 p.m. “They asked me about my son and said he had got involved in a fight. They did not mention murder. Scared, I took my daughter to my in-laws’ house in Ghummanhera and informed my husband,” she said. The police, she added, had taken the family for questioning that night.

Meanwhile, a neighbour informed the daughter about the minor’s involvement in the murder. She was also shown a video in which the accused was seen fleeing the spot.

The family, the mother said, has been living in her maternal house in Mehrauli following the incident. “I am just worried about my daughter’s wedding. This episode should not hamper that,” she cried. The mother met the accused briefly after his apprehension on Thursday. “He cried and said he had committed a mistake. He asked me to help him get out. The police said he was still intoxicated,” she said.