The gruesome murder of an 11-year-old Class 2 student, Kritarth, at DL Public School’s residential hostel in Hathras has left the community in shock and raised serious questions about safety and accountability in educational institutions. The police have detained a senior student, alleging that he killed Kritarth because he wanted the school to close for holidays. However, Kritarth’s family has dismissed this account, accusing the school management of negligence and misdirection.

Kritarth, a resident of Chursen village in Chandpa, was found dead on September 23, 2024, in the car of the school manager, Dinesh Baghel. According to police reports, the accused, a Class 8 student from Mathura, admitted to strangling Kritarth with a towel on the night of September 22 while all the hostel students were asleep.

The accused claimed during interrogation that he had seen online that schools shut down temporarily in cases of serious incidents or deaths. Believing this, he planned to kill a junior student. "I thought if I strangled a younger child, it would be quick, unnoticed, and would lead to a school closure," the boy allegedly told police.

The postmortem report confirmed that Kritarth had been strangulated. There were visible injury marks on his neck, corroborating the police’s claims.

Four days prior to the murder, the accused broke the CCTV cameras installed near the hostel stairs, reportedly to avoid being caught. He also confessed to trying to kill two other students earlier but failing.

After the murder, he threw the towel used in the crime near the henna trees behind the school. He later retrieved and discarded it again. On December 16, police recovered the towel based on the accused’s statement.

Kritarth’s family has outrightly rejected the police’s version of events. His father, Shri Krishna, a software engineer, and uncle,

Ghanshyam, alleged that school manager Dinesh Baghel is primarily responsible for the murder.

The family narrated their ordeal, saying that when they were informed by the school of Kritarth’s alleged illness, they rushed to the hostel, only to find him missing. After confronting Baghel multiple times, the manager was eventually stopped near Saadabad with Kritarth’s lifeless body in his car.

“The police are shielding the real culprits. The dead body was found in the manager’s car, yet he has been acquitted of the murder charges. We will move to the High Court,” said Ghanshyam.

Manager Dinesh Baghel and his family have denied any involvement in the murder. His wife, Pushpa, stated, “We trust the judiciary. My husband and other staff have been granted bail because there is no evidence against them.”

The accused student’s family also denied the allegations, calling them baseless. His father, a small-scale supplier of cakes in Mathura, claimed the police had falsely implicated his son. “My son has been made a scapegoat. Why would he commit such a crime just to get holidays?” he questioned.