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Journalism of Courage
A nine-year-old Baramati boy was allegedly killed by his father for not studying well. While his family claimed the boy died after falling unconscious and tried to cremate him, police took his body from the funeral pyre before it was set on fire and sent it for a postmortem, which revealed he had been murdered.
Pankaj Deshmukh, superintendent of police, Pune Rural, said that an FIR has been registered at the Vadgaon Nimbalkar police station in connection with the incident that took place on Tuesday. The deceased was identified as Piyush Vijay Bhandalkar. His father Vijay Ganesh Bhandalkar, grandmother Shalan Bhandalkar, and uncle Santosh Somnath Bhandalkar, all from Hol village, have been arrested in the case.
According to the police, Vijay Bhandalkar works as a peon at the local gram panchayat office. His wife left him a few years ago. Around 2.30 pm on Tuesday, when Piyush was at home, his father screamed at him for not paying attention to his studies. In a fit of anger, Vijay allegedly banged his son’s head against a wall and strangled him.
The police said Vijay and other family members took Piyush’s body to a private hospital, claiming he had become unconscious and fallen. However, doctors found the boy dead and advised the family to take him to a government hospital. But the family decided to conduct his funeral, telling villagers that he had died after falling unconscious. Due to the family’s suspicious behaviour, some locals informed the police around 9 pm about the circumstances surrounding Piyush’s death.
“We rushed to the spot immediately after receiving the information. When we arrived, the boy’s body was on the funeral pyre in the crematorium. We faced objections but still took the body and sent it to a hospital for postmortem. It revealed that the boy died due to strangulation. The investigation confirmed that the boy was murdered,” said Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Kale of the Vadgaon Nimbalkar police station.
Kale added: “We handed over the boy’s body to his family without disclosing the details of the postmortem report. After the funeral was performed, we initiated action. We have arrested the father on charges of murdering the boy. His grandmother and uncle have also been arrested for attempting to destroy evidence of the crime, as they were aware of how the boy died but still tried to cover it up. Further investigation is ongoing.”
