Five minor madrasa students held for killing 12-year-old boy in Odisha’s Nayagarh

Five minor students of a madrasa in Nayagarh, Odisha, were arrested for killing a 12-year-old boy and dumping his body in a septic tank. Police said the victim was silenced after he threatened to expose sexual abuse of juniors.

Bhubaneswar: Five minor students of a madrasa in Odisha’s Nayagarh district were arrested by police for allegedly killing a 12-year-old boy of the institution and dumping his body into a septic tank, an officer said on Sunday.

The incident occurred on September 2 at a madrasa located within the Ranpur police station limits of Nayagarh district. The police registered a case on September 3, and the five accused minor boys in the age group of 12 to 15 years have been taken into custody on Saturday, Nayagarh, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Subhas Chandra Panda told PTI.

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The preliminary investigation revealed that the victim boy, who hailed from Badamba area in Cuttack district, had allegedly threatened seniors of exposing their act of sexual abuse of junior students. The victim was allegedly sexually abused by a senior inmate of the madrasa for the last six months, and there was an attempt to kill him also on August 31, the ASP said.

Panda said that, though initially it appeared as an accident after recovering the body of the victim from the septic tank, later evidence showed that he was physically tortured and killed. “It was learnt that the victim was sodomised by two senior boys, including the 15-year-old senior inmate of the madrasa, before being killed and his body dumped into the septic tank,” the ASP said.

The boy was strangled to death by the prime accused and his four associates. “All five were taken into custody and produced before a court,” the ASP said, adding that a case was registered under Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), murder charge and POCSO Act.

While three boys were booked on charges of murder, one for murder and under POCSO Act and another one only under POCSO Act. The accused were shifted to a juvenile correctional facility at Angul.