Dalit boy allegedly murdered by brother of ‘upper caste’ girl he had affair with in Ahmednagar; hanged to pass it off as a suicideFalling in love with a girl from an ‘upper caste’ proved fatal for a Class 12 student of Ahmednagar district, who was brutally killed on Monday and then hanged from a tree to pass it off as a case of suicide. According to Ahmednagar police, the body of the youth identified as Nitin Raju Aage (17), a resident of Kharda in Jamkhed taluka around 200 km from here, was recovered from near a hillock hundreds of metres away from the village.Nitin was having an affair with a girl of the same village — when her brother found out, he allegedly killed Aage with the help of his friends.Meanwhile, Jamkhed police have arrested two accused, including the girl’s brother, for offences under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC, as well as relevant sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989.

Nitin’s father Raju Namdev Aage (50) lodged the complaint in this regard. Cops say the girl’s family was opposed to the love affair, as the boy belonged to a ‘lower caste’. After the incident came to light, the deceased’s family members and villagers staged a protest outside Kharda police outpost, and there was shutdown in Jamkhed town after the situation became tense.

Arrested persons have been identified as Sachin alias Aaba Hausrao Golekar (21) — whose sister Nitin had an affair with — and Sheshrao Raosaheb Yevle (42). On Monday, the duo and accomplices caught Nitin at New English School in Kharda, where he used to go for extra classes during the summer vacations. They beat him with sticks and took him to a nearby brick kiln.

“They brutally assaulted him again and took him to the Kanhoba hillock near the village, where they strangled him to death with a rope. To pass off the murder as suicide, they hanged him from a neem tree,” a police officer said, on condition of anonymity. When Nitin did not return from school, his parents launched a search for him and informed police. They found the body around 3.30 pm on Monday.

The postmortem was conducted at Jamkhed rural hospital and the report stated that he was strangled to death after a brutal assault. His relatives refused to take back the body till the accused were arrested. Late on Monday night, police arrested Golekar and Yevle — they are still searching for Golekar’s father and another accused, Akash Surve.