The hospital authorities handed over his body to the family on Saturday. (Express photo: Gajendra Yadav) The hospital authorities handed over his body to the family on Saturday. (Express photo: Gajendra Yadav)

When they brought him to the hospital, he was breathing. They don’t know what hit him, maybe it was a stone, maybe it was a tear gas shell. But they know it killed him.

The youngest casualty in the riots that broke out in the city last week is 15-year-old Nitin Kumar, a Class VIII student at a government school in Gokulpuri.

His father Ram Sugarak (48) said Nitin had gone out of his house at 2.30 pm on February 26 (Wednesday) to buy chowmein. “The place where you buy chowmein from is barely 100 feet from our house in Gokalpuri. The lane where we live had not seen violence till then, but the neighbours told us that things suddenly turned violent when Nitin stepped out. We don’t know what exactly happened but people told us that there was stone pelting and firing, and a tear gas shell was lobbed there,” he said. (Click to follow our coverage on Delhi violence)

Around half-an-hour later, Ram received a call from his family saying Nitin can’t be found. He came back and looked for him but couldn’t find him. Locals then told Ram that police had taken Nitin to GTB hospital.

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“I reached the hospital to find Nitin bleeding from a wound on his head. He was still breathing,” Ram said. Doctors tried to save him, but Nitin died three to four hours after being admitted to hospital.

The hospital authorities handed over his body to the family on Saturday.

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