Drug addict teen kills Lucknow man as parents deny him cash

LUCKNOW: A 16-year-old boy, addicted to intoxicants, was sent to shelter home on Sunday night for the murder of a 44-year-old man inside an under-construction house in Gomtinagar Extension last month.
The boy, who had failed to clear his Class 10 board exams, was upset with his parents who had stopped giving him money due to his growing addiction to cannabis and other intoxicants.
"On the night of March 15, desperate for money to buy liquor, the teen spotted what he thought was a vacant under-construction house near Madhuban Lawn and decided to break in," said SHO, Gomtinagar Vistar, Sudhir Awasthi.
However, to his surprise, the contractor, Deepu Srivastava, was inside. He confronted the intruder and immediately recognised him as a local boy. When Srivastava threatened to report the matter to the juvenile's family, an altercation broke out. In a panic, the boy picked up a brick lying nearby and struck Srivastava multiple times on the head, killing him on the spot, said SHO Awasthi.
Further elaborating on the sequence of events, Awasthi said that the teen panicked, locked the house using a key he found inside Deepu's pocket, and fled. He went home, changed out of the blood-stained T-shirt, and later went to a secluded spot near Gadheriyan Purva drain behind Lal Kothi to smoke cannabis. There, he discarded both the key and the T-shirt.
The crime came to light the next day, March 16, when a Police Response Vehicle (PRV 3116) received a call about a body inside the house. SHO Awasthi mentioned that accomplices and workers of Deepu thought he was a drunkard who could have consumed a high level of intoxicants and hence died because the house was locked from outside.
SHO Awasthi said that when the post-mortem report came, it surfaced that Deepu had multiple injuries on the head by a sharp object, which led them to suspect and lodge a detailed probe. Using CCTV footage, surveillance, and local intelligence, police tracked down the minor who was spotted scaling the boundary of the house to enter inside. But he was not spotted coming out, police said.
Following this, he was confronted. During interrogation, he confessed and led the police to the spot where he discarded the house key and the T-shirt, both of which have been recovered, the SHO said.