The police on Tuesday booked a Class IX student of a private English medium school in Kamothe and his 19-year-old friend for ragging a classmate and extorting money from him.
The older accused is not a student of the school, police officials said.
“The parents of the victim noticed something amiss in their son over several days. The boy had been losing weight tremendously and the cash at home kept disappearing. One day a gold chain went missing from the house, after which the parents decided to put him through counselling,” inspector Madhukar Bhatte from the Kamothe police station said.
Absurd phone call
Meanwhile, one day, the boy’s mother received a call meant for him, where the caller asked “Mobile ka kaam hua kya?” (Has the work of the mobile been done?). On realising that she had answered, the caller just said he was a friend of the victim from school, and cut the call.
During his counselling sessions, the boy revealed that he has been bearing the trauma for the last two years. “The victim’s parents alleged that the accused threatened to beat him up in class, and outside the school, ” Mr. Bhatte
Whenever the parents would ask the victim about the missing cash, he would give vague answers. They have claimed that boy has taken ₹2.9 lakh over the past two years, of which close to ₹60,000 was given in the past 10 days.
