A 15-year-old boy was allegedly killed by three men for repeatedly trespassing into a farm in central Maharashtra’s Beed district, police said.
On the face of it, however, it seemed like a case of suicide, a police official said. Two of the accused have been arrested for alleged murder after the victim’s father filed a complaint while a third one was absconding he added.
The incident took place at Nitrud village in Majalgaon taluka on Tuesday morning, he said. Gulam Mohammed Hafiz Murtaza Shaikh, the deceased, was collecting firewood for cooking with his siblings at the time of the incident, said his father Murtuza Shaikh (52) in the complaint.
Kailas alias Pintu Dake and two others caught Gulam, who studied in Class 9, for trespassing into the farm, the complaint alleged. One of them snatched a scarf which Gulam had brought to tie firewood and started strangling him while Pintu asked him to kill the boy, as per the complaint.
Gulam asked his siblings to run away fearing that they too would be harmed, it said. When Murtuza Shaikh learnt about the incident from his other children, he ran to the farm only to find Gulam hanging from a neem tree, he told police.
Pintu Dake had allegedly called this neighbour and claimed that the boy had hanged himself. But when they reached the spot, they saw Pintu Dake and another accused hanging the boy from the neem tree, the complainant claimed, adding that after seeing Gulam’s relatives, the accused fled.
Six months ago Dake had allegedly beaten up Gulam by tying him to a tree for passing through the farm. He had also threatened to kill Gulam on two occasions, Shaikh told police.