Patna: A 12-year-old boy was beaten to death at a village court in Bihar for allegedly stealing a few packets of biscuits from a village shop.
The gruesome incident occurred at Thadi village in eastern Bihar’s Purnia district on Sunday.
As per reports, a theft was committed in the grocery shop of a local villager Ajay Yadav on Friday night after which the shop-owner suspected the two village boys were the culprits.
Subsequently, both the boys identified as Pintu Kumar (13) and Chhotu Kumar (12) were caught by the local villagers and brought before a hurriedly-convened village court. At the court, the accused children confessed to the crime, after which the court ordered them to be hung upside down and beaten.
After severe beating of the children in the presence of the “judges”, one of the boys, Chhotu, succumbed to his injuries while the other boy sustained severe injuries. The attackers had also taken off the clothes of the children before beating them.
Reports said when the condition the victims started deteriorating fast, their parents requested the court to forgive them but the court instead asked them to pay up a fine of Rs10,000 (Dh592) to get their children back.
The poor parents even agreed to pay up the fine and sought two days time to pay the penalty but the court remained adamant on paying them then and there as one of the children died.
The police, meanwhile, have registered a case against eight people and are conducting raids to arrest the accused who are absconding. “The incident is quite serious as the villagers have taken law into their hands. We are not going to spare any of them,” the local district superintendent of police Ajit Kumar Satyarthi said on Monday, adding raids were on to nab the accused. According to him, the children had stolen a few packets biscuits, some chewing tobacco and petty cash.
