Delhi Police arrest 2, including minor, for murder of e-rickshaw driver Ravinder Kumar

Delhi Police arrested a student and held a minor for the brutal murder of Ravinder Kumar, the e-rickshaw driver who was killed after he stopped two youths from urinating on the roadside. The duo was arrested from their hideouts in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday night.

While Kapasia, a second year B.Com student of Sri Aurobindo College in Malviya Nagar, is a resident of Sant Nagar, the juvenile, aged 17 years, is studying at a south Delhi school, and is a resident of Malviya Nagar. The youths belong to Muzaffarnagar, according to the police.

Also read: Man Kills Teen for Stopping Him From Urinating Outside House

"We have identified five other youths. We are interrogating Kapasia and the juvenile to ascertain the hideouts of their associates involved in killing e-rickshaw driver Ravinder Kumar on Saturday," Delhi Police deputy commissioner Milind Mahadeo Dumbere said, according to Quint.

"Seven police teams and a team of Crime Branch are conducting a manhunt to trace their hideouts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana," he added. He also said that the accused decided to seek revenge following an argument with Kumar. The police scanned through the identities of about 300 students of the School of Open Learning of Delhi University, who had come to take an examination at the Kirori Mal College on the day of the incident. They were finally able to get a lead on the attackers after looking at CCTV footage, which showed Kapasia and his accomplice enquiring about Kumar's whereabouts from other e-rickshaw drivers nearby.

Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday, May 29, took to Twitter and assured people that he would personally look into the matter and that the culprits will not be spared.

The 32-year-old e-rickshaw driver was allegedly beaten to death on Saturday evening in north Delhi's GTB Nagar after he objected to the students' act of urinating near the Metro station.

Kumar, a resident of the Kishore Market area, was parking his e-rickshaw on the roadside when he saw the duo urinating in public. As stopping people from urinating in public is one of the key goals of the Swacch Bharat campaign, he stopped them, saying that their habit was the cause of bad smell and poor hygiene in the area. According to the locals, the accused were also drunk.

After the argument, the two accused left but threatened Kumar that they would come back with their friends. Eye witnesses were reported as saying that 14-15 men came together and started beating the man. "Nobody came to help him. The man was beaten to death as the boys filled towels with stones and brutally thrashed him. They even started beating me. Somehow I was able to run away from here to ask for help," one of the e-rickshaw drivers was quoted as saying.

Later on Monday, Naidu gave a cheque of Rs 50,000 to the family of the deceased e-rickshaw driver. Prime Minister Modi and the Delhi government also announced compensation of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, respectively, to Kumar's family.