The 18-year-old had given his friend Rs 400, but asked him to return it when his mother asked about the money; when his friend refused, the teenager and his other friends beat him to death
Hoping to avoid getting in trouble at home, an 18-year-old is now in deeper trouble with the law after he killed his friend. The teenager had lent his friend Rs 400, but then ended up thrashing him when his mother asked him to get the money back.
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According to the police, Pravin Rajendra Rathod’s mother had given him Rs 500 to fill petrol in his vehicle. When his friend, Ajay Lotan Rakme (also 18) who lived in the same neighbourhood in Sangharsh Nagar, Andheri (West) asked to borrow some money, Rathod gave him Rs 400.
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Half an hour later, however, when he went home, Rathod’s mother asked where the money had gone. He told her that he had lent it to his friend and would get it back in a few days. But his mother insisted that he collect the money immediately, and Rathod went back outside to search for Rakme.
Rakme was sitting outside his building when Rathod caught up with him and asked him to return the money. Rakme refused, saying he no longer had the money. Baffled, Rathod asked how he could have spent Rs 400 in half an hour.
In the ensuing argument, Rathod and two of his friends began to abuse Rakme, and eventually began to beat him up. Pravin and his friends, Amol Balaji Nagar (22) and Akash Ravindra Sardar alias Mogli (22), pushed Rakme around, smashing his head on a metal barricade at the society’s entrance gate.
Rakme received injuries to his right leg and his thumb, but it was a fatal contusion to his head and eye that led to his death. After the incident, the three assailants were arrested and Rathod, the prime accused, confessed to the murder.
The trio was booked under Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.