In a dreary hall of Pune’s remand home, 17-year-old Vishal watches a Bollywood potboiler on a television set placed some 50 feet away. He has a crew cut, a rough visage and a deadpan expression. But the look in his eye is surprisingly vulnerable.

Vishal looks just like the home’s 50-odd young adults with names like Mithun Chakravarthy and Ram Vilas Paswan. But he, like 15 other boys there, is identified as 302 — the IPC section that stands for murder.

For he already has blood on his hands.

Two years ago, Vishal killed a man who, he says, had threatened to slit his young cousin’s throat with a knife. “I simply grabbed a knife from a coconut seller nearby and attacked the man,” he says. Then, he adds, he smashed his chest with a stone. The deed done, Vishal says he surrendered to the police.

Juvenile crime is on the rise, as Pune’s remand home, which is one of its kind in the entire district covering 14 talukas, indicates. If there were four cases of murder in 2000-2001, by 2002 the number had risen to 15, though the increase is also related to an amendment to the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986. In 2000, the age limit of a juvenile boy was raised from 16 to 18. Between 2005 and 2006, there were 43 murder cases.

Remand home officials are unclear why murders by juveniles are on the upswing. This year has been particularly bad. Just the first two months of 2008 have seen 33 Pune youngsters charged with murder.

Even the total number of juvenile crimes under the IPC in Pune doubled between 2001 and 2002, rising to 186. By 2002-2003, this number had increased to 270. While the numbers have shown a steady rise up to 2007-08 (545 cases), the first two months of 2008 alone have seen 195 youngsters charged under the IPC in Pune.

All the youngsters at Pune’s remand home that The Telegraph interviewed say they are between 16 and 18 years. And their crimes smack of gang wars and revenge — though not all are premeditated. They often come to the home in groups of threes and fours, says Vasanthi Kashid, a counsellor at the remand home for the last 14 years. And unlike a decade ago when children appeared frightened on being rounded up, these youngsters often manage to terrorise the staff, she adds.

“I’ll see you once I am out,” is an oft-repeated threat that the home’s staffers have to hear.

The crimes committed by juveniles in the country are mostly of a serious nature. The National Crime Research Bureau (NCRB) says 83.7 per cent crimes committed by juveniles in 2006 came under the Indian Penal Code. Of these, theft, hurt, burglary and riots formed 50.9 per cent of juvenile crimes that year. And while Maharashtra reported the highest number of IPC crimes among juveniles in 2006, Madhya Pradesh led the pack in crimes such as murder, rape, kidnapping and abduction.

Most of the alleged killers, says R.S. Kharat, superintendent of Pune’s remand home, are in the 14-18 age group, though the figures could also be influenced by “some boys above 18 producing fake age certificates through their lawyers, to escape prison.” Some undergo an ossification test which helps in identifying a person’s age. Chandra, a teenager in Pune’s Yeravada jail, is awaiting the results of his ossification test. Three months ago, he was caught with 16 kg of marijuana.

Many of these juvenile offenders came from incomplete families, mostly living in slums. According to the NCRB’s latest report, a large chunk of juveniles (72.4 per cent) in 2006 belonged to poor families, with an annual income of up to Rs 25,000. About 27 per cent came from middle income groups, with an income of Rs 50,000-Rs 2,00,000. “But then, unlike middle class children, the poorer ones do not have the money for bail,” says Kashid.

Many of the youngsters, as Kashid says, are pushed into crime because of poverty, conflicts in the family, peer pressure and the need for money.

They are also often used by politicians and gang lords for criminal activity, she adds. Quite a few of the teenagers have no visitors; even their parents don’t visit them.

But most are street smart and able to think on their feet. Most of them hold that they are innocent. Some insist their victims died of an addiction to alcohol and drugs and not because they were attacked.

Avinash, for instance, claims that he did assault his victim, but did not kill him. The strapping lad, who says he is 18, and four friends — also in the home — hit their drunk victim with pipes. They hit him, but didn’t kill him, he insists — a statement that his friends endorse.

Rajesh, 17, who is charged with rape, along with seven of his rickshawdriver friends, is lodged at the Yeravada jail. He too insists that the woman they took to a deserted building was a commercial sex worker high on alcohol. Santosh, 17, in faded denims and an acne-hit face, has been accused of attempting to rape his neighbour’s two-year-old girl who had been left in his custody. He is not the culprit, he says.

Innocent children or vicious youngsters? There is no way of knowing.

What is clear is that the remand home tells the story of a loss of innocence. Vishal, for instance, will always be known by his new name — 302.