india

Updated: Mar 15, 2019 15:55 IST

A class 10 student in Rajasthan has been arrested for the alleged murder of his 65-year-old neighbour. The student allegedly committed the crime just a day before he was to sit for the first of his Rajasthan Board Secondary Education (RBSE) exams.

Sikar City’s deputy superintendent of police Saurabh Tiwari said the boy has confessed to having killed the woman. “They lived in adjacent houses, joined by terraces. The boy jumped into the woman’s house from his terrace and ran back after stabbing her multiple times,” the police officer said.

The police was informed of the crime by some locals who spotted her lying on the floor, bleeding heavily, and rushed her to a nearby hospital where she died.

Tiwari said that the boy, in his confession, told the police that the woman, who lived with her husband, would often behave rudely with him. The woman’s husband was not at home when the incident took place.

“During the investigation, the boy told us that the woman used to behave nicely with his friends, but would be rude to him and would scold him without reason,” DSP Tiwari said.

Another neighbour said the woman was quarrelsome and hated the boy’s family as they belonged to a lower caste. The woman belonged to the influential Jat community while the boy belonged to the Kumawat community, a neighbour said.

“She would object to his playing cricket, and would not return the ball if it fell into her house. She would curse the boy if he crossed her way, saying ‘kiska muh dekh liya subah subah (Why did I see his face in the morning?). She looked for reasons to shout at him,” the neighbour said.

Barely a fortnight ago, the woman had got into an argument with the boy’s grandfather after the boy’s cricket ball accidentally fell into her house, the neighbour said. The boy had been living with his grandparents since he was 3-years-old, locals said.

On Wednesday, when the boy was studying on the terrace for the English paper, the woman began shouting at him. “That proved to be the immediate provocation for the boy to attack her,” police said.

Kotwali police station SHO Shrichand Singh said there were around 20-25 injury marks on the woman’s body. “The boy got the knife from a juice shop run by his maternal uncle,” the officer added.

He was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board on Thursday and sent to a juvenile home.

A teacher said the boy was a brilliant student and had scored 86 per cent marks in Class 9. “He wanted to become a government officer,” she added.