In the last fortnight, at least 10 juveniles were apprehended by the city police for their involvement in heinous crimes like rape and murder.
“We need to overhaul the entire system because it is effecting mental growth of young innocent children who are not hesitating in committing heinous crime,” said a police official.
The police said that in some cases the juvenile accused were also aware of the fact that the police cannot keep them in lockup and they will not get severe punishment even for the heinous crime committed by them. “There has been an increase in the severity of the crimes committed by the juveniles. They know that they are juveniles and take advantage of the fact, saying you cannot arrest us for questioning or punishment,” said a senior police official.
“We follow the law. We thoroughly investigated the Mercedes hit-and-run case and booked the culprit under relevant sections of the IPC,” said a police official investigating the case.
On April 8, a 51-year-old Uber cab driver was murdered allegedly by two juvenile passengers who dumped his body at an open field in west Delhi’s Mundka area.
On April 7, an eight-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered by a juvenile in west Delhi’s Uttam Nagar area.
On April 6, two, including a juvenile, were apprehended in a case of abduction and murder of a 17-year-old boy.
On March 24, the police apprehended six juveniles in connection with a murder of dentist Pankaj Narang.
An officer from the Delhi police special cell said that there are several gangs who execute crime by minors to skip punishment and the trend of recruiting young boys continues to thrive in gangs involved in burglary and murders.
A group of such boys were used to carry out shooting inside Karkardooma court room last December.
