Darjeeling, Nov. 18: A 14-year-old school dropout from Darjeeling tortured his three-year-old niece to death last evening for dirtying a room.

The teenager appears to have first used a stick to beat Soniya Rai before stabbing her with a sickle and searing her on the face with hot iron tongs. The child died of her injuries.

The gruesome attack at Nagla village near Rimbick, about 125 km from Darjeeling, took place while Soniya’s mother Sukmit Rai was away tilling the fields.

“There was no one in the room. We suspect that the boy took Soniya to a nearby field first and beat her up there,” said Santosh Rai, an uncle of both the accused and the victim.

“He later appeared to have brought her back into the house and locked her in the room.”

None of the villagers realised what was happening as most of them were busy in the fields.

Although the boy had not revealed the motive for the murder even to his family till this morning, he told journalists he had been angry with Soniya for dirtying the room.

“She dirtied the room and I got angry and beat her up with a stick,” the teenager said.

When Sukmit returned home, she found her daughter battered and gasping for breath.

“It appears that the boy had also attacked Samin, Soniya’s five-year-old brother, with the sickle and injured him. He then warned the child not to tell anyone about the incident,” Santosh said.

“He also threatened Sukmit, saying she would meet the same fate if she spoke to anyone about the murder.”

Soniya’s father Buddha Rai is away in Sikkim on business. The boy’s father, Prasad Rai, works in the Mim tea estate.

The villagers later took the teenager to Lodhama police station and handed him over.

The police, who have registered a case against the boy, produced him in the court of the judicial magistrate in Darjeeling today.

Sources said the case is likely to be transferred to a juvenile court after the accused is produced in the magistrate’s court on Monday.

The boy is likely to be sent to a juvenile home in Jalpaiguri.

Villagers said the accused teenager had got into trouble on several occasions and had lately become too desperate.

“We believe his mental state is okay but he has a history of creating trouble,” Santosh said.

“He dropped out of school a few years ago. The school authorities found him difficult to handle.”