Fourteen-year-old Hindu boy killed for befriending Muslim girl in Karnataka

In the most pathetic stories of murder heard ever, a fourteen-year-old boy was killed and dumped into the Bhima River in the Kalaburagi district of Karnataka last month only because he was a Hindu boy and had befriended a Muslim girl.

Sources said that 14-year-old Hindu youth Kolli Mahesh, a 9-year-old pupil at a government school in Naribol, was brutally murdered for forming close friendships with a 14-year-old girl from a neighbouring village colony.

The gruesome incident came to light on February 27 after the villagers recovered a dead body in the Bhima River a few kilometers from the village. The police raced to the location and removed the dead body that had been tucked inside a gunpocket, only to discover a decomposed body. With the aid of his family members, the police found the dead body. According to the police, the boy’s nose and genitals were cut off.

The boy’s uncle Vishwanath said that Mahesh had left home on the evening of 22 February, saying he would go to the temple and be back in 15 minutes. When he did not return, the family got worried and asked his friends about his whereabouts.

Later, the family discovered that Mahesh had formed a close relationship with a Muslim girl in the village. The friends of the deceased boy have said that Mahesh had given her a cell phone. Soon, Mahesh’s father and uncle entered the house of a classmate. The child, who was younger than Mahesh, returned the cell phone and went inside. Following this, they lodged a report with the missing persons at the Jewargi Police Station.

It was discovered that the mother of the girl had warned the boy not to visit their area and leave the girl alone. The mother was also seeking the aid of a relative to alert the child.

A girl’s uncle, Mehboob, called the boy away from his village on Monday under the pretext of talking to him. Five days later, Mahesh’s dead body was discovered a few kilometres away from the village of Naribol. The villagers were surprised to find that the boy’s private part and nose had been cut off. The police told the media the same thing.