A six-year-old student in Bihar's Gaya district was beaten to death for eating an apple kept as an offering to Goddess Durga during the puja at his school, alleged the police.
The couple who ran a residential school called Little Leaders Public School in Baki Bigha village, Wazirganj block, Gaya, was arrested during the investigation.
Speaking to the police, Ram Balak Prasad, the grandfather of victim child Vivek said, "The school has organised Durga Puja inside the premises. There were some fruits (prasad) on a table and Vivek picked an apple from the offering and consumed it.
Following the incident, the owners of the school kept Vivek in a room and brutally assaulted him. After the physical assault, they threw him outside the premises."
"My grandson went unconscious outside the school gate," he continued.
"An auto driver, from my village, spotted Vivek and brought him home to the Ukhra village under Wazirganj block and handed him to us. Seeing his condition we immediately took him to a local hospital.
Looking at his condition, the doctors of the hospital referred him to Magadh Medical College. Vivek succumbed to wounds on his way there," Prasad added.
"Vivek had narrated his ordeal and told us that Vikas Singh and his wife had thrashed him on the chest," Prasad said. The incident occurred on Tuesday and was reported to police on Friday.
Ram Ekbal Yadav, the SHO of Wazirganj said: "We have registered an FIR and arrested the accused. The family members of the deceased claimed that the student Vivek was studying in Little Leaders Public School and staying there in the hostel. He was brutally assaulted by the accused named Vikas Singh and his wife who are the owners of the school. The victim died under mysterious circumstances. We are investigating the incident."
"The actual cause of death will be ascertained only after the postmortem and viscera tests," Yadav said.
