A 24-year-old labourer Sagar Mahadev Bhalerao was allegedly beaten to death over a petty dispute last night by a petty group of miscreants in Dhanori, reported The Indian Express. The police have arrested seven people, including five juveniles, residents of Munjaba Vasti, in connection with the incident.
Bhalerao, a resident of Panchsheel Mitra Mandal in Dhanori worked at a construction site doing plumbing and waterproofing work. The police suspect that he was allegedly attacked with iron rods after a drunk Bhalerao hurled cuss words at his attackers. Bhalerao was taken to Sassoon General Hospital by some people, but he was declared dead due to having sustained serious multiple injuries.
Arun Avhad, Inspector at the Vishrantwadi police station said, “An offence has been registered against seven persons, including five juveniles. All of them have been detained. The two persons above 18 years of age will be produced in court while the five minors will be produced before the Juvenile Justice Board. As per the complaint registered by Sagar’s brother, the seven persons brutally beat him up following a dispute. Sagar hurled abuses at the group, after which they started beating him up with iron rods.”
As per the National Crime Records Bureau ‘Crime in India’ statistics for 2018, a total of 38,256 juveniles were apprehended in 31,591 cases. Out of these 35,380 were apprehended under cases of the IPC and 2,876 under Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes and majority of the apprehended were in the age group of 16 years to 18 years.
In 2017, the ‘Crime in India’ statistics also reported that the number of ‘educated’ juvenile offenders – the ones who had studied up to higher secondary increased 32 percent from 4,244 in 2016 to 6,260 in 2017, The Print reported.
The numbers also said that the number of ‘illiterate’ juveniles caught for criminal activities had reduced by 20 percent from 5,412 in 2016 to 4,324 in 2017.
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