A 13-year-old boy, who was allegedly doused with kerosene and set ablaze by two persons in a village near Chakan township, succumbed to his injuries at Pune’s Sassoon Hospital.
According to the police, the victim, Akash Sandeep Mahalungkar, the son of a farmer, was a class VII student of a local school in Koregaon-Khurd village, 45 km from Pune.
At around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, the boy went to relieve himself on a hillock behind his house when two men pinned him down, poured kerosene on him and set him ablaze.
The boy’s screams woke up his parents who, along with other relatives, rushed him first to a local hospital from where he was later brought to Sassoon hospital here with more than 80 per cent burns. The boy died on Sunday evening.
“The boy narrated to us the sequence of events before he died. We are trying to probe whether Akash’s family had any enmity with anybody in the vicinity. As of now, we have not discovered the reason behind this cruel act,” said a local police officer.
More than 24 hours after the boy’s death, the motive for this gratuitous act of violence remains unknown. The Chakan police have registered an offence against unknown persons.
