The teenager apprehended for allegedly killing a junior student at a school in Vadodara last week has told investigators that he committed the grisly act to defame the educational institute, the police said on Sunday.
The Class 10 student did not even know the victim, who was a year junior to him and who had taken admission in the school in Baranpora area only a week ago, a police officer involved in the probe said.
The police on Sunday took the 17-year-old accused, held in Valsad on Friday night, to his home in Vadodara and other places he visited after allegedly committing the crime.
They recovered the clothes he was wearing at the time of the crime, sources said.
Later he was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board.
“The board sent him to an observation home,” Assistant Commissioner of Police S G Patil said.
The board also appointed an independent welfare officer, as provided under the law, to monitor investigation and questioning of the accused.
This officer will remain present during questioning and also when the police take him outside the observation home for investigation.
The body of the 14-year-old boy, a Class 9 student, was found with multiple stab wounds in the washroom of the school on June 22. The killing was a grim reminder of the murder of a seven-year-old student in Gurugram last year.
Police zeroed in on the accused from the CCTV camera footage, which allegedly shows the accused and the victim walking up to the first floor and entering the washroom.
A police official said the accused revealed during questioning that he committed the crime because he wanted to “defame” the school after being scolded by teachers three days before the incident for passing off someone else’s homework as his own.
Gujarat education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama met the victim’s parents at Bakrol in Anand district on Saturday.
He handed them a cheque of Rs two lakh, donated by the Vadodara Primary School Teachers’ Association. The parents will also get financial assistance as per the government rules, the minister said.
