A 19-year-old man has been arrested for his alleged involvement in a break-in followed by vandalism at a missionary school in south Delhi’s Vasant Vihar earlier this year, police said on Monday.
Rahul Moirangthem, who hails from Manipur, and two of his friends, had raided Holy Child Auxilium School as a drunken afterthought after an outing in mid-February.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, an alumnus of the school, had reported the matter to police.
After the incident on February 12 night, it had triggered political hue and cry across the capital with members of the Christian community alleging vindictiveness towards minorities and communal undertones to it.
Delhi Police had then declared a cash reward of Rs 50,000 to catch the perpetrators, two of whom still remain at large.
The case was transferred to the Special Task Force (STF) of south district police for further investigation.
“Even as investigation continued, a similar incident was reported from Mount Carmel School on May 29, in connection with which Rahul was arrested, but later released on bail,” said R S Krishnia, Joint Commissioner of Police (South-East Range).
Rahul happened to be in Manipur when the forensics team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on June 30 informed police that his fingerprints matched with fingerprints picked up by their team from Holy Child Auxilium School. “The STF’s investigation in the case was commendably technical in nature,” Krishnia added.
According to police, Rahul was summoned for questioning on July 11 and confronted with the fact that his thumb print had been recovered from the desk drawer of the missionary school’s principal, following which he was formally placed under arrest.
Rahul told police that while he had decided to break into Mount Carmel School, of which he himself was an alumnus, on a whim and to avenge the fact that he had a compartment in his Accountancy paper in class 12, his decision to target Holy Child Auxilium School too was driven by vendetta.
Rahul disclosed during questioning that on the evening of the incident, he was visiting Vasant Vihar market along with his friends and had watched a movie at PVR Priya. Holy Child School was located nearby on the route. After consuming liquor, they decided to execute the break-in. In fact, Rahul and his friends had also attempted a break-in at DTEA Government School in Nanak Pura a month ago, but the incident was not reported to police.