Delhi:
A 17-year-old who burgled houses and set them on fire to destroy evidence was yet again able to make good his escape from an observation home in Mukherjee Nagar in Delhi. Even the fact that the boy had given them the slip fivetimes in the last seven years did not help the cops learn their lessonwell.
It did not occur to the cops manning the juvenile home that for the 17-year-old, scaling the walls of the facility is like a child's play and they should take extra care. This time the teenager pooled in shirts and other clothing items from 16 other inmates to make a rope to scale the walls of the observation home.
The facility has two entry gates. The main one leads to another from where the main facility starts. Therefore, the boys first overpowered the un-armed guards at the entry gates and then climbed two 10-foot walls before finally escaping around 3 pm.
"We have registered a case at the Mukherjee Nagar police station and alerted all the police stations in the city, especially those where they might try to hide. We are investigating into the matter to fix responsibility of the errant officers," said NS Bundela, Deputy Commissioner of Police (northwest).
The Sarojini Nagar police station arrested the boy four times in the last eight months but the cops could not keep him in custody.
The police had apprehended one of the accused, Raju, last on March 19, three days after he escaped from the observation home at Mukherjee Nagar, taking 27 other juveniles with him. On March 9, he was arrested from Sarojini Nagar. He had reportedly threatened the police that he would escape again and he did. On the night of March 18, the 17-year-old and 27 others dug a small opening in the wall adjacent to the observation home boundary wall,dismantled the iron bars in the window of the bathroom and fled after jumping off the wall of observation home. He injured three security guards.
Prior to this, Raju had escaped in February this year with seven others and last year, with 36 inmates. After the February escape, the gang, on February 22, burgled the house of a widow, Parvesh Jugal Kishore of Laxmi Bai Nagar and set her house on fire. On the night of March 8, they burnt the house of an Army officer in Sarojini Nagar after burgling it.