West Bengal witnessed a shocking incident in the month of August after three minors killed another minor for ransom to buy a computer.
The accused minors (all around 16) and studying in 10th standard, abducted victim (14) of 8th standard — all studying in the same school — first strangulated him and then dumped the body in a pond.
What is even more macabre in the case was that the victim was fed rasgullas and cold drinks before being strangled. The incident took place in Ghurni area at Krishnanagar in Nadia district of West Bengal.
It was not just the macabre process involved in the crime which shocked the investigating officials but the lack of repentance by the victims and with the calm they confessed to their guilt after being arrested was more than shocking.
As per their confession, they had abducted the minor student victim and then called up his mother for ransom of Rs 3,00,000 which they wanted to spend on purchasing a costly computer. However, after they came to know that the mother of the victim had informed the cops, they first murdered him by strangulation and then dumped his body in a pond.
Before killing him, the accused minors also fed the victim with his favourite rasgullas and cold drinks.
“We were shocked when we heard them. There was no remorse about what they had done. They candidly confessed to the crime they had committed,” an investigating police officer said.
He said that the accused confessed that the reason to kill the victim was a false sense of realisation that when they will not ultimately get the ransom money, there was no point in keeping the victim alive.
“The accused felt that if they kept him alive there were higher chances of them getting arrested so they ended his life. They had no realisation that by killing the victim they will land in bigger trouble,” the investigating officer said.
He said that the more chilling thing about the incident was that the accused knew that the victim loved rasgullas and cold drinks. “They confessed that they wanted to fulfill his last wish,” he said.
Senior counsel of Calcutta High Court Kaushik Gupta said that there needs to be a debate whether the accused have attained or are above 16 years of age.
“As per the latest act applying to all matters of children and crimes committed by them, a juvenile, aged between 16 and 18 years, who has committed a heinous offence can be tried as an adult only when the Juvenile Justice Board certified that the accused has the mental and physical capacity to perform the offence and also commits the crime understanding the consequences of that crime,” Gupta said.
He said that there is a fine line between the two parameters of understanding the consequences.
Medical-teacher associated with Kolkata-based KPC Medical College and also a visiting faculty with the department of psychology with the University of Calcutta, Tirthankar Guha Thakurta feels that the entire sequence of events in this particular case shows high levels of emotional and psychological fluctuations among the accused minors.
“On one hand, they preferred to kill the victim, understanding that they will never get the ransom. This shows their lack of realisation that the punishment could have been much lesser had they stopped at just the abduction and chose to surrender.
“On the other side, they fulfilled the last wish of the victims by feeding him with sweets and cold drinks. This is a clear case of acute psychological imbalance. Surely there were early symptoms, which I feel, the parents or senior family members of the accused, either failed to read or chose to ignore,” he said.
No wonder that acclaimed American social activist Gloria Marie Steinem once said that she is glad that people have begun to raise their daughters more like their sons, but it will never work until they raise their sons more like their daughters.
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