The 16-year-old boy beaten to death on Monday night did not know much English — but he wanted to learn. That’s why he had come to the capital, his family said. After dropping out of school, the boy was sent to Kanpur along with 15 others from his village. “His parents sent him to the madrasa so he could learn something. But he had given up on formal education. When he returned from Kanpur, he did not take up a job like his father asked him to. Instead, he wanted to pursue a vocational course,” his uncle said. For the past 15 days, the boy had been working at a local electrical shop in Delhi, while his family was busy collecting money for his education. “My father works as a labourer in Noida; I have also been doing odd jobs for a living. My brother had come from Bihar and was waiting to join a vocational course. His English was not good and he wanted to pick up the language,” his elder brother said. Read | Delhi: 16-yr-old beaten to death on suspicion of theft, 2 held But with a rent of Rs 1,500 for the one-room house they lived in, the boy had to wait another two weeks before the money for his vocational course arrived. “He may not have been much of a reader, but he used to help out in the electrical shop. We wanted him to join a vocational training course in the same field,” said the uncle. The night of the incident, the brother said they did not talk much. When he woke up the next day, his brother’s body was lying 200 metres from his house.
