A 16-year-old boy was apprehended for throwing an acid-like substance at a minor girl in north Delhi’s Burari, the police said on Sunday.
The boy’s motivation was a general dislike towards women and he had chosen the girl at random, they added.
A senior officer said the incident took place around 1 p.m. on Wednesday when the victim, 16, had gone to pick her 10-year-old cousin from a school at Shastri Park Extension.
She was rushed to a hospital and released after treatment, the officer added.
According to the FIR, “The boy, whose face was covered by a white handkerchief, threw a liquid at the girl that caused irritation in her eyes, neck, and nose.”
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Manoj Kumar Meena said the spot where the incident took place had no CCTV cameras. “We only knew from the complaint that the boy was around 5-feet-tall, wearing blue trousers and carrying a blue striped backpack,” he added.
After scanning CCTV footage of the roads leading to the spot, the police zeroed in on a boy who matched the description and was seen running.
Possible routes where the boy could have run away were drawn up, while a team scanned the survivor’s social media as well as her contacts to check for possible suspect known to her.
“We concluded that the boy attends one of the two Delhi government schools in the area and scanned scores of students in the morning and the evening shift. We finally identified the accused through his bag while he was leaving one of the schools in the evening shift,” the senior officer said.
During interrogation, the boy disclosed that he had found a powdered substance, belonging to a chemical factory in Bawana where his father works, lying in his house. “He used water to turn it into a caustic solution, filled it in a small bottle, and threw it at the victim,” said the officer.
An FIR has been registered under Sections 326B (voluntarily throwing or attempting to throw acid) and 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code, they added.
