Three days after 14-year-old Rajat Menon was killed in the national capital, Delhi police on Sunday said that they would approach the Juvenile Justice Board and seek for the trial of the two juvenile accused minors in a regular court.
Police had nabbed both the accused (brothers), sons of a pan masala seller after going through CCTV footage in Mayur Vihar area of the city.
The deceased is a native of Kerala’s Palakkad and the incident triggered massive outrage amongst Keralites residing in Delhi which led the police to accept the demand of a special public prosecutor in the case.
Even Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday had written a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking an “independent and just” investigation into the case.
According to media reports, Rajat was killed by the brothers over a heated dispute over accusations of the deceased having misappropriated some goods from the shop owned by their father.
Some reports suggest that both the brothers were already miffed over some prank Rajat had played on them around a month ago.
Soon after the death, a local mob went about destroying the kiosk. All shops were closed down in the area, fearing a backlash following an initial inaction on part of the police.
It was only after continued pressure from the Delhi Malayali Association, that the police took the kiosk owner and two of his minor sons into custody and registered a case of murder.
Post-mortem report termed Rajat’s death as unnatural. No external injuries were found.