A day after nationwide protests over the mysterious death of 19-year-old Manipuri, Richard Loitam in a Bengaluru college, the rural police on Tuesday registered a case of murder and booked two students of the same college, whose blows to Richard’s head may have led to the teenager’s death.
The Madanayakanahalli police, who had registered a less-serious case of unnatural death under Section 174 (C), turned it into a case of murder under Sec 302 of the IPC. The police identified the accused as Vishal Banerjee and Syed Afzal Ali.
A senior police officer said, “The decision to register it as a case of murder was taken after consulting the doctors and forensic experts. There are 11 injuries on Richard’s head; four to five of them are old, while the others are new. The hostel supervisor, Sudhakar, filed a fresh complaint on Monday, alleging that Richard died after Vishal and Syed punched him during a brawl at the hostel.”
Bangalore Rural SP Dr Prakash said, “We changed the status of the case after interrogating the suspects and witnesses. But we have not arrested anyone as we are waiting for forensic and post-mortem reports, expected in two days. Till then, we cannot officially take any action.” Richard Loitam was a second-semester student of Acharya NRV School of Architecture in Soladevanahalli. He was found dead in his college hostel on April 18.