A 17-year-old teenager was stabbed to death by two youth in front of his house in Delhi’s Patel Nagar area, police said on Saturday. The police have identified the victim as Manoj Kumar Negi, while the two accused were apprehended.

Manoj was reportedly on way back from college – he studied at ITI, Pusa Road – when he was attacked. Identity of the two accused has been withheld since they claim to be ‘juveniles’. One hopes that an age determination test is conducted to verify this claim, and that they be treated as adults due to the severity of the crime.

Following the incident that took place on Friday night, residents of the area protested on Saturday in front of Patel Nagar police station, demanding strict action against the accused and saying that they will not perform last rites until justice is delivered.

The gruesome episode was captured in a CCTV camera installed in the area.

A senior police official said that at 9.22 p.m. on Friday night, information was received at the Patel Nagar police station about a stabbing incident. Manoj was taken to Sardar Patel hospital where he was declared brought dead.

“On the basis of a statement given by the victim’s father, Chandan Singh Negi, a case under section 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC has been registered,” the police official said.

“The accused juveniles have been apprehended and a knife used to commit the crime has also been recovered from their possession.” A further probe is on in the case.

In a similar stabbing from Thursday night, Arman (21) murdered Sabir (Shabir, 20) in North West Delhi’s Adarsh Nagar for opposing inappropriate remarks on the latter’s female friend. Last names of both victim and accused have not been reported in news reports.

Unfortunately, the Lutyens’ media ecosystem will ignore the news of Manoj Negi’s stabbing because the life of a Hindu teen matters little to them unlike the case of Junaid Khan (16) who died after he and his elder brother started a fight over a train seat.

Manoj is not the first youth who has been killed for protesting the sexual harassment of a family member. Sadly, he won’t be the last. The inability of our politically correct law enforcement machinery to hand down speedy and deterrent punishment to such criminals, especially when they are committing gateway crimes incorrectly termed ‘eve teasing’, is what emboldens them. Media reports on such crimes commonly castigate bystanders for not intervening to save the victim, but don’t utter a word against the judiciary and liberal elites who have normalized the soft treatment of criminals.

Dharma Kumar Sahu was lynched to death by his niece’s stalker Mohammed Ajlam Nadaf in Darbhanga district of Bihar in June; Aditya Tiwari (15) was killed by Taif Khan and others outside his school in Saran district of Bihar for allegedly protesting sexual harassment of girl students; Dhruv Tyagi got his throat slit in Moti Nagar, Delhi when he went to a Muslim family’s house to complain about their son harassing his daughter.