Patiala: 15-year-old murders friend for iPhone after celebrating his birthday

A 15-year-old boy from Punjab’s Patiala district brutally murdered his 17-year-old friend for his iPhone 11, hours after attending his birthday party.

Police said on Wednesday that the accused lured Navjot Singh of Alipur Ariyan village to a rail track in Rajpura town of the district around 10.30 pm on March 25 and stabbed him in the chest with a sharp-edged weapon to steal his iPhone 11. Navjot died on the spot.

The victim and the accused, both school dropouts, met around three months ago through a mutual friend.

In a bid to cover up the murder, the accused sought help from another friend, a 14-year-old boy from the victim’s village, offering him ₹1,000 to help dispose of Navjot’s body. Together, they placed the body on the rail track to make it look like an accident. However, in an unexpected twist, the accomplice confessed the truth to Navjot’s family on March 30, and the police were informed.

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Jasvinder Singh, the station house officer (SHO) of the Government Railway Police (GRP) at Rajpura, said that the mutilated body was recovered from the rail track during the intervening night of March 25 and 26.

At first, the GRP suspected an accident and sent the body to the mortuary of the Rajpura civil hospital, issuing an alert for identification. On March 30, Navjot’s family identified the body. The post-mortem examination showed that Navjot had been stabbed before he was run over by a train.

“After the accomplice revealed everything, we arrested the 15-year-old accused on April 1 from Rajpura town and sent him to a juvenile home in Ludhiana,” Jasvinder Singh said.

He said just hours before committing the murder, the accused was at Navjot’s house blowing candles on his birthday cake at the party.

“The accused appears to be a drug addict,” the SHO said, adding, “We have recovered the iPhone 11 for which he killed his friend.” Police have recovered the weapon used in the crime.

Victim’s father Harjinder Singh, who is a car mechanic, said Navjot left home saying that he was going with the accused to Rajpura, from where they would go on a trip.