14-yr-old boy killed by father’s student over pending tuition fees

By Susant Dalai

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 2: The Odisha police on Thursday claimed that it had cracked the sensational murder of a Class 9 student that occurred at Benapanjari village on the outskirts of capital city Bhubaneswar on Wednesday evening.

Bhubaneswar deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Prateek Singh told reporters here that the minor boy was stabbed to death by his father’s student.

The accused, a juvenile, killed the boy over a pending tuition fee.  “The 14-year-old boy was assaulted with a knife at his residence while his parents were teaching other students in a separate room. On hearing screams, the parents ran towards his room and found their son was heavily bleeding. They rushed him to a hospital, where he was declared dead,” he said.

During the investigation, it was found that a Plus 2 student was involved in the murder case. The police has detained the juvenile, who has confessed to his crime and seized the weapon that was used for killing the minor boy.

“A school bag was found at the crime spot. The weapon of offense and wearing apparel were seized. The scientific team has visited the spot to collect other evidence. The juvenile has confessed to the crime and has revealed the motive behind the murder,” Singh said.

Speaking about the murder case, the DCP said that the juvenile was the student of the deceased boy’s father. During the interrogation, he revealed that he killed their son out of humiliation for asking the former for pending tuition fee amounting to around Rs 3,000-Rs 5,000.

The juvenile will be produced before the court after investigation.

However, the father of the deceased boy who is a school teacher, dismissed the claim made by the juvenile.

“We provide tuition to children from Class 8 to 10 at our house. He was my student 2 years ago. He had not paid nearly Rs 2,700-3,000 during the period and after completion of his matriculation, I had never forced him to pay the pending amount,” the deceased boy’s father Manoj Kumar Paltasingh said.

“My son was a bright student. He did not have enmity with anyone. The accused might have killed him for money,” he told media.

According to reports, Subham Swarup, the Class-9 boy of Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya in Jatni, was stabbed to death at his residence in Benapanjari on Wednesday evening. With the knife stuck in his body, the minor boy was rushed to a hospital where the doctors declared him dead.